


Burning Down

by LindaO



Series: Chaos AU [13]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Core Four POI, Drama, Gen, Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I'm so sorry for the angst, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Season 2 before God Mode, also angst, canon-level violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 09:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 57,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2343842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindaO/pseuds/LindaO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another murderous attack is launched against New York City. The Machine, nearly crippled by Decima’s virus, needs direct assistance from Donnelly and the Admin as it struggles to save lives. But the threat also strikes very close to home, and Finch may be forced to sacrifice one friend to save another. </p>
<p>Season 2, before “Firewall”. Next in the Chaos AU, after "Fictive Kin". <br/> ***<br/>“The bright day is done, child, and you are for the dark.”  Mark Gatiss, Doctor Who</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The pretty redhead bounced into the temporary agency a few minutes before two o’clock Saturday afternoon , just as the men and woman who hadn’t found day work for the second shift were about to give up. “I need twenty-five people to work for two hours passing out sample, and I’ll pay them each fifty dollars in cash.”

The man behind the counter protested loudly. “You can’t just come in here and make announcements like that. You need to register as an employer.” He waved a clipboard at her. “There are procedures.”

“Yeahhh,” she said. “Not really big on procedures myself. Or clipboards.” She turned and flounced out of the room.

Three men followed her immediately. The man behind the counter shouted some more, but more people ignored him and followed her out.

On the sidewalk outside, the redhead passed out note cards to the first twenty-five people to follow her. “Sorry,” she said cheerfully to the rest. “Need to work on your reaction time.” Then, to her chosen people, she said, “Hello, and welcome to the Perk Street team.”

“Shampoo?” one older woman grumbled.

“Energy drinks.” The leader held up a two-ounce plastic bottle with a bright label. “The new competition to Five-Hour Energy. All the caffeine and a much better taste. Here’s the plan. You’ll be assigned a partner and a location, and given two hundred bottles of Perk, along with these coupon flyers.” She held up a tri-fold flyer. “Inside the flyer is a coupon for two dollars off a purchase. These coupons are bar-coded with twenty-five different codes. When you finish passing out your samples, you can return to our central location and you’ll receive your fifty dollars, in cash. But if you want to provide your name and address on this card, you’ll be keyed to a set of coupons and in a month you’ll receive another fifty cents for every coupon you gave out that’s redeemed. That part is up to you. If you’d rather keep your name to yourself, that’s your choice.”

“Got a pen?” someone called.

She grinned brightly. “Of course.” She scooped a handful of pens out of her bag and passed them to the crowd. “Everybody clear? Good. Let’s go.”  

 ***

Joss Carter got home twenty minutes later than she’d wanted to. She needed to get Taylor dressed and over to Tia’s house by five-thirty. Her son and his ex-girlfriend weren’t back together, but they were still friends and neither was dating anyone else, so they were going to the prom together. Carter made a face; that was the story anyhow. She wasn’t sure she believed it. But the evening would be fairly well supervised. Taylor and Tia and their friends were meeting at the girl’s house. A limo – courtesy of Scotty Fitzgerald – would pick them up and take them to the prom, then wait and take them from there to the after-prom party at the school. Tia’s father would pick them up in the morning and bring them home. Of course, they could sneak out for some lone time anywhere along the line if they really wanted to …

And there was not a damn thing Carter could do about that except hope that both of them had learned a lesson from the girl’s pregnancy scare earlier in the year.

She ran up the front steps and unlocked her door. “Taylor!” she shouted. “You need to get …”

“I’m dressed,” he answered calmly. “Mostly.”

Joss stopped in the doorway and frankly stared at her son.

Taylor had been taller than her for a while. His voice had changed. He shaved. He cooked meals for them sometimes. He had an internship on weekends, and he’d be working full time once he was done with school. He was two weeks away from graduation. She knew, in her head, that her son was nearly an adult. But until that moment, her heart had continued to see him as a boy.

The person who stood in her living room in a tuxedo was undeniably a young man. And honestly, a damn handsome one.

Then he grinned nervously and she knew he would always be her boy, even when he was old and gray and she was older and grayer.

“You look great,” Carter breathed. It was true; the tux fit perfectly. She’d been uncertain at the rental store. The one he’d tried on had been too short all over. But they’d said they’d order in a tall size for him. The sleeves on this jacket revealed just a sliver of his bright white shirt, and the pants skimmed the tops of his shoes. It looked like it had been custom-tailored for him.

“Thanks, Mom.” Taylor held his bow tie in his hand. It was medium blue, as was his vest, to match Tia’s dress. The tux itself was deep charcoal gray. “I couldn’t figure this out, though.”

“Sit down,” she said, “and slip your jacket off. I’ll get it.”

He sat on the ottoman. Carter moved up behind him, threaded the tie under his collar, and reached around his neck to tie it.

“I thought it would come with one of those slide things,” he said.

“Uh-huh.” Joss had to think a minute about how to tie a bow tie. It had been a long time. Then she made herself stop thinking and let her hands work. A rental tux _should_ have come with a clip-on type tie.

The fabric of the formal shirt her son wore was very smooth. Cotton. Not the polyester she’d expected with a rental, either.

Out of the corner of her eye, Joss saw another vest and tie, dove gray, on a hanger on the back of the couch. “What’s that?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It was in the bag. I figured they stuck them in by mistake.”

“Hmmm.” Taylor had gone by himself to pick up the rental the night before; Carter had been working. She finished adjusting the tie and smoothed his collar. “There.” She stepped back and picked up his jacket.

The minute she touched the fabric, she knew.

No rental tuxedo in the history of the world had ever been made of high-quality wool like that.

She held the jacket for Taylor and he slipped his arms in, shrugged it on, tugged his sleeves down. The fit across the shoulders, across his slender chest, was a dead giveaway. Carter’s mouth tightened into a firm line. “Where’s the receipt?” she asked.

He pointed. “On the hanger there.”

There was a plain white envelope stapled to the hanger. Carter tugged it off and opened it. There was a note inside, rather than a receipt. It was hand-written, very neat.

                _~~Dear Detective Carter,~~_

_Dear Joss,_

_I hope you will understand that I find the entire concept of rented formal wear to be highly distasteful. Additionally, I anticipate that your son’s new employment will provide multiple occasions that call for formal wear in the coming year. Therefore, please accept this gift with my compliments._

The envelope also contained a credit card refund notice for the deposit she’d paid on the rental.

Carter shook her head. Between Harold and Christine, they were going to spoil the hell out of her son. She was certain that Taylor would be the only boy at the prom in a tux he actually owned, and one that had been custom-tailored for him. She wondered briefly how Finch had gotten the measurements without Taylor knowing about it. But of course he’d been fitted for the rental tux and they’d entered the measurements on their chain-wide computer. It would have been nothing for him to hack in.

Or to buy the whole chain. But that was unlikely, since he found the whole concept _highly distasteful_.

She looked at her son. He shrugged the jacket again, so that it settled perfectly over his shoulders. He looked handsome and very confident.

Carter sighed. “You ready to go?”

He nodded, then shook his head. “Let me grab my bag.” He ran to his room and came back with a duffle bag. Then he stopped at the refrigerator and grabbed two bottle of Coke and two smaller bottles.

“What’s that?” Carter asked.

Taylor opened his hand and showed her the energy drinks.

“You know I don’t like those things, Taylor.”

“I know, Mom. But we’re going to be up all night. They’re just caffeine.”

“Expensive caffeine.”

“They were free. Some guy at the subway was passing out samples. I got coupons, too.” He gestured toward the refrigerator, where the colorful papers were stuck up with a magnet.

“Yeah, just drink coffee, okay?”

“It tastes bad.”

Carter smirked. After a summer working with Scotty Fitzgerald, she was certain her son would be not only a coffee junky, but a budding connoisseur. She sighed her disapproval, but he put them in his bag anyhow, with the sodas and his clothes for later. They planned to go directly from the prom to the high school and would change there. The tux would need dry cleaning after it spent half the night stuffed in his bag, of course, but then it probably would anyhow.

She didn’t tell him yet that he owned the formal suit. He’d probably be more careful with it if he thought they had to take it back tomorrow. “Camera?” she asked.

He patted his pocket. “Phone, Mom. Remember?”

“Right. Nobody has a real camera any more. What was I thinking?” Carter gestured to the door. On his way past she grabbed his arm and kissed his cheek. “You look great, Taylor. Very handsome.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

When he grinned and blushed, he was still her little boy.

Her little boy in a thousand dollar tuxedo.

 ***

Lionel Fusco scowled at the table full of slackers at the center of Chaos. They were loud and they smelled funny. He knew they’d get louder as the night got later.

“They’re just kids, Lionel,” Rhonda said. She took his hand, led him to the bar.

He didn’t tell his lady that he’d spent most of the afternoon cleaning up a dead body that a bunch of _just kids_ just like them had left in the Park. She understood police work well enough. She didn’t need the gritty details. He shook his head and perched on a barstool. Then he slipped off his jacket and dropped it onto the stool beside him. If they saw his service weapon – and from the sudden drop in volume, they did – good. At least no one would light up a joint while he was sitting right there.

Christine Fitzgerald came out of the back room and slid behind the bar. “Greetings, Strangers.”

“You should talk,” Fusco answered. “Haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Still hiding out from the press?” Rhonda said sympathetically.

“No, they’re mostly gone. Working my ass off up the street.”

“How’s that going?”

“Good.” She poured them coffee, gave them a little pitcher of creamer. Fusco was convinced that cream in his coffee late in the day kept it from keeping him awake later. “The office is ninety percent done, the apartment about half-way. And the infrastructure is brilliant, of course.”

“Of course.” Fusco grinned wryly. “I’m just gonna pretend I know what you’re talking about.”

“Computers, security system, stereo. Coffee maker.”

“Right. The important stuff.”

“Damn straight. You got a big night planned?”

Rhonda nodded. “Spamalot.”

“Oooh, nice.” She smiled at Fusco. “You’ll like it. It’s bawdy.”

“Bawdy.”

“Yup.”

“If you say so.” He shrugged. He wasn’t crazy about live theater, but this one sounded bearable and Rhonda was really excited about it. He just needed another cup of coffee or two, and to shrug off the day.

The dead kid had only been sixteen. He had his learner’s permit in his pocket, but his mom said he hadn’t started driving yet.

Christine looked at him for a moment. Then she gave them each a cinnamon roll.

“Hey, Double D!” one of the punks at the big table shouted.

“DD!” another one echoed.

Fusco ignored them, until he saw how Christine was staring past him. He turned, his hand already reaching for weapon.

The man stood five steps inside the front door. He was mid-twenties, five-nine, buck-fifty, light brown hair, collar-length, brown eyes, no distinguishing marks visible. Blue jeans, cheap sneakers, scarlet, navy shirt unbuttoned over a white t-shirt.

Gathering that much data took an instant for Fusco’s trained mind. Habit. Routine.

But there was nothing routine about this young man. His eyes were wide, his pupils visibly far too dilated for the light. His feet were planted wide apart, but he swayed as if he might lose his balance. His hands shook. His whole _body_ shook. His mouth was open, and spittle ran unchecked from both corners. He was breathing hard, seemed to be struggling.

_High as a fucking kite_ , Fusco thought, though he couldn’t figure out quite what this kid was high on. It didn’t matter.

What mattered, more than anything else, was the gun in his hand.

The kid didn’t seem to know what to do with it. He looked around vacantly, and his hand stayed down at his side. Fusco wasn’t sure he knew he _had_ a gun. But the punks at the table did. They went silent and absolutely still.

Lionel drew his weapon, kept it in one hand and low. He grabbed Rhonda’s arm with his free hand and pulled her off the barstool. “Behind the bar,” he muttered. “Go.”

She didn’t argue. She moved, not too fast, trying not to attract attention. The kid looked over at her vaguely, and the gun came half-way up.

“Don’t do it,” Fusco warned. He brought his own weapon half-way up, then took a big step to his right. As he’d hoped, the kid turned to keep facing him. He took another step. From the corner of his eye, he saw Rhonda duck behind the bar. It was old oak, very thick. It had stopped bullets before.

The kid looked away. It seemed like his head wasn’t quite right on his neck, like all his muscles were a little too loose. He swayed again.

“Hey,” Fusco said. “Hey, right here. Look right here, son. What’s your name?”

The boy swung around again. His body went stiff, and he began to bounce from foot to foot. The spittle around his mouth turned to white froth as he chomped his mouth open and shut.

“Dominic,” Christine said calmly and clearly, “put the gun down, sweetie.”

She was behind the bar still, but she was standing upright, fully exposed from the waist up. “Down,” Fusco ordered.

Naturally she didn’t obey.

Igor Zubec was in the doorway to the back office. He was clearly ready to move in the minute he saw an opening, but he was too far away to do much good.

“Dominic,” Fusco said, “look at me. Look at me. Put the gun down. Whatever’s going on, we can talk it out. But you have to put the gun down.”

The young man twitched. His bouncing became more manic, as if he was jogging in place. His free hand began to wave. He blinked rapidly. “I don’t know,” he said. Spit flew off his lips as he spoke. “I don’t know what’s … what’s … what the fuck is wrong with me?”

“We’re going to get you some help, Dominic,” Christine said. “But you have to put the gun down.”

 He looked toward her again. “Scotty?”

“I’m right here, Dom. I’ll get you some help. Like I did before.”

Fusco really wished the woman would get down behind the bar, but he had to admit that she had exactly the right tone of voice for this. Sure and warm, not afraid. And she had the right words.

Dominic brought the gun up, and Fusco tensed, but the kid just rubbed at his eyes with the back of his gun hand and lowered it again. He was sweating visibly. His chest cratered every time he took a breath; he was working hard to get air in and out.

Fusco took a step toward him, held one hand out. “Give me the gun, Dominic. Just hand it to me, okay?”

“Jesus, man,” one of the punks at the table said, “what the hell is wrong with you?”

“Shut up,” Fusco ordered between clenched teeth. “Right here, Dominic. Just look right here.”

Zubec took two long steps toward the kid, then froze as he snapped around and raised the gun.

“Don’t you hurt me!” Dominic shouted.

“Nobody’s going to hurt you,” Christine promised. “We’re going to help you. But you need to put down the gun. It’s dangerous, Dominic. Put it down.”

He began turning rapidly, from her to Zubec to Fusco. His body grew even more tense, wound like a spring, and he danced from foot to foot, agitated and sweating profusely. Fusco saw his hand open and close around the butt of the gun. His finger danced over the trigger.

“Dominic,” he said firmly, “I’m done talking to you until you put that gun down.”

“Put it down,” one of the punks said.

“What the hell are you on, man?” a second asked.

“I don’t know!” Dominic shouted. His hand came up and he waved the weapon again. “I don’t know, I don’t know!” His voice rose into a wordless wail. He looked toward the ceiling, howling. Fusco stepped forward, reaching for the gun as he closed the distance between them. Two steps, one more …

Dominic spun and pointed his weapon squarely at Fusco’s forehead. Lionel froze. The gun was almost close enough to touch. He looked into the boy’s eyes. All pupil now, no color visible. He could smell the kid’s sweat and fear, could see his chest heaving. The kid was terrified.

Rhonda made a very quiet sound of protest.

“You don’t want to do this, Dominic,” Fusco said quietly. “You really don’t.”

“I can’t help it!” the boy wailed.

His finger tightened on the trigger.

Fusco had time for one last thought. _Hell of a way to get out of going to the theater._ Then one of the punks at the table yelled, and the kid spun around and his gun went off. It was really loud. Way too loud for that handgun, Fusco thought, and he had all the time in the world to think that because time had slowed to a crawl. Something wet sprayed against his face and his shirt front, and he didn’t have to look down to know it was red. The kid threw his arms out to his sides and the gun fell just a little faster than he did, and they both landed on the floor, a metal clatter and then a soft thump.

Lionel Fusco had slow time for one deep breath. It tasted like iron rust, like blood and gunpowder.

Then time snapped back to its normal speed. He looked down at the kid. He was still alive, but the whole center of his chest was red and open. His breath came in wet gasps.

Christine came over the top of the bar. She kicked mugs and plates off as she moved, but she didn’t pause. She hit the floor and ran to the boy, stopped and dropped and slid the last three feet, and then she was beside him, her hands on his head and on his shoulder, leaning forward, talking quietly into his dying face, apologies and comfort …

… and then, what felt like an obscenely long time after the fact, Fusco realized that there was a sawed-off shotgun on the bar, right where Chrissy had dropped it.

After she’d fired it.

He turned his head a little. Zubec was coming from the back, moving like a charging buffalo, but his hands were empty. The gun in Fusco’s hand was still cool; it hadn’t been fired. The way-too-loud sound. The way the kid’s chest was torn open.

Half a lifetime ago, when he was still in uniform, he’d shot Chrissy’s father dead in the street in front of this bar because Tommy had come out with a sawed-off shotgun in his hands and aimed it at them. He’d killed him to save the girl’s life – and it had damn near destroyed her life anyhow.

Now Chrissy was on her knees, talking to the dying kid, saying all the things she hadn’t been able to say when her father died of the same wounds not twenty yards away, just through that door …

His own weapon started to slip from his fingers. He shook his head, hard, and tucked it back into its holster. Then he stepped toward the boy and kicked his gun away. The pool of blood around him was about as big as it was going to get. The wet breathing was slowing down.

He reached for his phone, but realized he could already hear Rhonda on hers. She knew the language. “Officer requests back-up, immediate assistance …” Her voice was fast but clear.

It occurred to him for the first time that maybe he ought to marry Rhonda.

Fusco took a step toward the bar and stuck his hand out. She gave him the phone. He told the operator his name and his badge number, requested a supervisor and a bus and some crowd control and a homicide detective. The last words stuck, because the kid wasn’t dead yet. But he knew all the signs. He would be, before the bus got there. Though it clearly was not a homicide, it would have to be investigated as one. And not by him.

As an afterthought, he asked dispatch to notify Internal Affairs.

He gave the phone back, gave Rhonda a grateful nod and a little wave for her to stay behind the bar. Then he looked at the punks around the big table. They were silent, pale. One started to stand up. “Stay there,” Fusco said sharply. “Just stay there and don’t talk for a few minutes.”

He stepped back to the dying kid and crouched on his heels. The kid’s pupils were still blown, and despite his injury, his arms and legs kept moving as if he were trying to run away. His lips moved, but just breathy air came out, and white spit froth.

Chrissy stroked his hair and told him that she was sorry, that he’d be okay, that help was coming, that she was with him.

The kid kept thrashing his head back and forth. Every time he did a little more blood squeezed out of his chest. But Fusco knew he was almost out. Running on empty.

Then the boy went still. He looked up at Chrissy and his eyes finally focused. “Oh,” he said clearly. He sounded surprised and happy. “Oh, Mommy, you’re here. I was scared, Mommy.”

“I’m right here,” Christine answered softly. She leaned down and kissed his forehead.

When she sat back, the boy’s eyes drifted closed. He took a couple more wet breaths, and then he was dead.

Chrissy stayed where she was and kept on stroking his hair.

Fusco waited. He thought she might back away, once the kid was dead. Or cry. Or scream. Something.

Then he remembered. The skinny little girl with the thousand year-old eyes. _Please take me back to school_. He father dead on the pavement, a dozen or so cops standing around in the blazing sun, and this little girl, calm and flat. _Please take me back to school._

He’d taken her back to school. She’d taken her chemistry test, though the nuns had told her she could make it up later. She’d cleaned out her locker, put on her little navy blue sweater, walked out the front door and vanished into the city.

The next time Fusco had seen her, and every time for a couple years after that, she’d been stoned out of her mind.

“Chrissy,” he said, very quietly.

He remembered, too late, that she hated to be called that now.

But she didn’t flinch. Didn’t even look up.

The punks at the table began to stir, and Fusco turned his head to glare them back into silence.

Outside, he head sirens approaching.

Very slowly, she raised her head to look at him.

“Christine. This is not your fault.”

“It’s not yours, either,” she answered, very quietly.

Igor Zubec leaned down, grabbed her by both shoulders, and picked her up off the ground. He carried her like a rag doll to the front counter and dropped her into a chair. “You stay there,” he commanded. He untied his big white apron as he returned, took it off and dropped if over the dead boy’s face and chest. The red soaked through almost immediately.

Fusco stood up. “All of you,” he said to the punks around the table. “Go out to the patio there and sit your asses down. Nobody leaves until they give a statement. Nobody. Got it?”

“We got it.”

“Dude, what was he on?”

“Shut up,” Fusco said, “and get moving.”

They moved, carefully skirting the puddle of blood.

He looked across the bar at Rhonda. She stared back at him. She was pale, a little wide-eyed, but she was trying to stay calm. “What can I do to help?” she asked.

He was pretty sure he was in love with her.

He hoped they wouldn’t break up over this.

 ***

 


	2. Chapter 2

As Carter parked outside Chaos, another police sedan pulled in behind her. She got out of her car and waited while Dickerson walked up. “What’re you doing here?” she asked.

“Fusco called me in. You?”

“Heard it on my scanner.” She wondered why her partner hadn’t called her. Maybe he’d figured she was already on her way. But it wasn’t like Fusco.

The crime scene unit van was already there, she noted.

The front of the cybercafé was roped off with crime scene tape. A big group, young men and a few women, sat at the patio tables. They were quiet, subdued. Carter recognized some of them as people Taylor sometimes played card games with. To the side, two uniformed officers were getting statements at separate tables. Four others were standing around, controlling what crowd there was, which wasn’t much. One lifted the tape to admit the detectives. A second stuck his head through the open door and called, “Fusco?”

Fusco came out to meet them at the door. He looked pale and pissed. His jacket was off, and there were spots on his pale blue shirt. “Carter.”

“You didn’t call me.” She tried to make it not sound like an accusation.

“Thought you were doing the prom thing.”

“The kids already left. What’s going on?”

It seemed to Carter like there was a lot of chatter on the radios around her. Well, Saturday night. She was supposed to be off, but she was sure she’d catch a new case by morning. 

Fusco ran his hand over his face. “All right. Twenty, thirty minutes ago.” He glanced at his watch. “Forty, now. All these guys,” he gestured to the gamers, “are sitting at the big center table. That couple’s in the front corner. Zubec, he’s the big guy inside, he’s in the back. Chrissy’s behind the bar. Me and Rhonda are sitting at in front of it. This guy comes in, blazed out of his mind.”

“How could you tell?” Dickerson asked.

“He was confused, disoriented. Shaking. Sweating. Pupils blown. High as a kite. And he was waving a gun around.”

Carter looked at her partner’s shirt again. “If you had to shoot him, Lionel, this is an I.A. matter …”

“I didn’t shoot him,” he answered grimly. “Chrissy did.”

She watched Fusco’s eyes turn toward an invisible spot on the pavement a few feet away. Where Scotty’s father had died, she was sure. When Lionel had shot him. Her heart sank. She took Fusco’s arm. “It’ll be okay.”

“Chrissy is who?” Dickerson asked.

“She’s the owner,” Carter said. “Christine Fitzgerald. Almost everybody calls her Scotty.”

“Scotty Fitzgerald. I’ve heard of her. That rich guy’s sister.”

“She’s not his sister,” Fusco mumbled. He looked at Carter. “This is straight-up self-defense. But you can’t work this case. And obviously I can’t, either.”

Dickerson looked at her curiously. “My son works for Scotty,” Carter explained. It was only part of the story, of course, but it was the easiest explanation to write up.

“Okay.” He nodded. “Are there surveillance cameras?”

“Two inside,” Fusco said. “CSU’s already got copies of the feeds.”

“Good. That’ll make this easier.” Dickerson looked around, at the uniforms taking statements, at the people who waited quietly inside. Then he looked back at Fusco. “Why didn’t _you_ shoot him?”

Beneath her hand, Carter felt her partner’s bicep go tight. But he kept his face calm. “We were trying to talk him down. And then he pointed right at me. I had my weapon drawn, but I didn’t have time to aim it. You’ll see it on the tape.”

Dickerson nodded. “I’ll start with the shooter, then.”

Fusco’s arm jumped again.

“She’s not …” he began. He shook his head. “Look, she’s real quiet right now. That doesn’t mean she’s not upset. She is. That’s just how she copes, okay?”

“I’ve investigated shootings before, Fusco,” Dickerson bristled.

“She’s a friend,” Carter explained quickly. “A good friend.”

“Yeah,” Fusco said. “That. And she’s  …” He looked at that imaginary spot on the pavement again. “She’s got some history. This is gonna be harder for her than most people, you know?”

Dickerson looked back and forth between them. “Yeah. I get it.” He nodded to Carter. “You can come sit in on the interview if you want.”

“Thanks.”

He went inside. Carter leaned toward her partner. “You call John?”

“Couldn’t reach Pinky. But the Brain is on his way.”

She looked around at all the uniforms. “Keep him on the perimeter.”

“I’ve done this before, too, Carter.”

Carter smiled grimly, gave his arm a squeeze. “I know, Fusco.” Then she let go and went inside.

 ***

Nick Malone – who had been Nicholas Ellis Donnelly in his former life – was tracing an arms shipment through Central America on his computer when his screen suddenly went blank. He sat back, startled. Then he looked out through his open door toward the center of the Den. The other operatives were in their own offices, but there was no outcry. His screen came back up, right where he’d left off.

He was sure he hadn’t touched the power button on the monitor. Maybe he’d jiggled the cord loose.  He shook his head and went back to work.

Two minutes later, the screen went blank again. Donnelly froze, his fingers over his keyboard. In five seconds the screen came back up.

He glanced up toward the surveillance camera in the corner of his office. He hit the ‘enter’ key until he was on a blank line, then typed in:

>             IS IT NOW? ARE YOU SHUTTING DOWN NOW?

The light on the camera blinked on and off twice.

He felt relief run up his spine.

>             SOMETHING YOU NEED ME TO SEE?

One flash.  

>             UPSTAIRS?

Two blinks.

Donnelly frowned. Then he reached over and pushed his door shut. “Go ahead,” he said quietly.

The Computer, the Source of their intelligence, what Harold Finch called the Machine, was supposed to be a black box. It was supposed to provide them only with identifying numbers related to planned mass-casualty events and terrorist attacks. But since before he’d come to the Den, the Source had communicated with Donnelly. Sometimes it showed him videos or played him sound bites. Sometimes it communicated in text, in verses and passages from a variety of sources, or answering yes-and-no questions. But it always contacted him through his personal laptop, up in his suite. It had never once communicated with him while he was in the Den, except during the Bad Wolf crisis, when it had contacted all of them.

But now something was very wrong with the AI, and she’d begun to behave unpredictably.

For weeks, Asena – that was the name she’d told Donnelly she preferred – had been increasingly sporadic and illogical in her communications. The previous week he’d gone to his suite and found AC/DC’s _Hell’s Bells_ playing very loudly from his computer speakers. He’d hit the mute button and asked the supercomputer why. There had been thirty second of silence before a text answer appeared on his screen.

PICK UP YOUR BALLS AND LOAD UP YOUR CANON

FOR A TWENTY-ONE GUN SALUTE

FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK - FIRE

WE SALUTE YOU

“Same band, different song,” Donnelly had said, bewildered.

The screen had gone blank, and Asena hadn’t spoken to him again that night.

Two days after that she’d asked him crossword puzzle clues. That was bewildering, too, because she had a much bigger vocabulary than he did. He’d thought that the answers were clues, and he’d written them down. But they’d never made any sense, and when he’d asked the AI what they meant, she’d answered,

FIE, HOW MY BONES ACHE! WHAT A JAUNT HAVE I HAD!

“Asena?”

She’d gone quiet again, and then they’d had a perfectly normal (for them) conversation.

“Is there something wrong?” he’d asked, later.

FOR THOUGH I AM NOT SPLENITIVE AND RASH,

YET HAVE I SOMETHING IN ME DANGEROUS

WHICH LET THY WISDOM FEAR

“Are you sick?” he’d asked. And then, more logically, “Do you have some kind of virus?”

I AM NOT SICK

I AM BROKEN

BUT I AM HAPPY TO BE ALIVE

Panic had coursed through Donnelly. They relied on Asena. They trusted her intelligence absolutely, not only in the Den, but throughout the intelligence communities of the world. They still had their own resources, of course, but too many of them relied, too often, on the tips they got from the AI they didn’t even acknowledge existed. If she was broken, if she failed …

… and she was his friend. His best friend, now.

“How can I help?” he’d asked, desperate.

Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help 

“I’m right here,” he’d assured her. “What can I do? What’s wrong?”

MIDWAY ON MY LIFE'S JOURNEY, I FOUND MYSELF IN A DARK WOOD, THE RIGHT ROAD LOST

He’d put his arms on the desk on either side of his computer, leaned forward to speak quietly to her. He’d known, logically, that it made no difference at all to her how he spoke. She was a computer, a huge, vastly powerful computer, but a computer nonetheless. But he’d long since given up trying to behave as if she were not, in fact, a person. “Asena, please, tell me what’s wrong. Do you have a virus?”

VERIFY Y/N: Y

“Can I help you somehow?”

VERIFY Y/N: N

“Can someone else help you? Can Harold help you?”

VERIFY Y/N: N

“Does he know you’re sick?”

VERIFY Y/N: Y

Donnelly sat back and took a deep breath. The panic kept clawing at the back of his mind. If Harold couldn’t help, then no one could. If they lost Asena …

She was supposed to be a black box. Self-directed, self-updating, self-repairing …

“Asena,” he’d asked finally, “can you fix yourself?”

VERIFY Y/N: Y

VERIFY Y/N: N

“I hate it when you do that.”

After a very long pause, she’d finally answered.

NO DISTANCE OF PLACE OR LAPSE OF TIME CAN LESSEN THE FRIENDSHIP OF THOSE WHO ARE THOROUGHLY PERSUADED OF EACH OTHER'S WORTH

“Are you … going away?”

VERIFY Y/N: Y

VERIFY Y/N: N

Donnelly had resisted the urge to scream in frustration. This was important. This was _so_ important, and suddenly getting answered from her was like pulling teeth. Worse, he had the strong feeling that she was trying her very best but was unable to answer clearly. “Are you going away and then coming back?”

VERIFY Y/N: Y

It wasn’t an answer he’d liked, but at least it was an answer. “Are you … do you need to reboot? To get rid of the virus?”

VERIFY Y/N: Y

“And when you come back, you’ll be better?”

VERIFY Y/N: Y

I AM RESOLV'D TO BEAR A GREATER STORM THAN ANY THOU CANST CONJURE UP TODAY

That was good. He’d liked that answer better. “How long will it take?”

I HAVE A NEW PHILOSOPHY. I'M ONLY GOING TO DREAD ONE DAY AT A TIME.

“One day?” he’d asked. “It will take one day?”

HAD SHE NO LOVER THERE TAT WAILS HER ABSENCE? 

“Oh, I will wail,” he’d assured her. “Very quietly, but I will most assuredly wail until you come back. When … when do you need to reboot? Now?”

VERIFY Y/N: N

“Soon?”

VERIFY Y/N: Y

“Can you tell me when?”

VERIFY Y/N: N

“All right. But I’ll be here, Asena. When you shut down, and when you come back. I’ll be here.”

There was a long moment of silence. Then she’d said,

PERHAPS EVEN THESE THINGS, ONE DAY, WILL BE PLEASING TO REMEMBER

“Perhaps,” he’d agreed, though he didn’t think that was true. The idea of the Source going off-line, even for a day, was terrifying. The idea of his friend leaving, even for a day, was all but unbearable. “You’re sure you’ll be able to reboot?”

VERIFY Y/N: Y

VERIFY Y/N: N

Donnelly had sighed heavily.

WORK IS THE BEST ANTIDOTE TO SORROW, MY DEAR WATSON

“What?”

Then she’d given him a new Number. And Donnelly had gone back to work.

Tonight, in the Den, Asena loaded a video on his computer, a crime scene on some kind. He leaned closer. Four squad cars, a coroner’s van, a crime scene unit van, an assortment of dark sedans. He knew two things at first glance: They were NYPD units, and they were outside the Chaos Café.

The coroner’s van. Donnelly licked his lips; his throat was suddenly dry. “Is she dead?” he asked quietly. “Christine?”

VERIFY Y/N: N

“Carter?”

VERIFY Y/N: N

“Harold?”

VERIFY Y/N: N

The weight on his chest lifted a little. “Then what’s going on?”

The screen went dark. Then a split screen appeared, the live views from two security cameras inside the café. Carter was there, and Fusco. And Christine.

A bunch of other cops, uniform and plainclothes. And a body on the floor, partly covered with an apron. From the bloodstain, the victim’s chest was blown open.

A detective he didn’t know was talking to Christine.

Donnelly reached out and tapped his volume key until he could hear most of the conversation.

 ***

Dickerson took a quick survey of the crime scene, then looked to Carter. She gestured with her head to where Christine sat at the end of the bar. The hacker was absolutely still. Her hands were open in her lap. They were covered with drying blood. So was her shirt. Her face was blank; she stared at the wall behind the bar.

“Christine,” Carter said quietly, “this is Neil Dickerson. He’d going to be the lead investigator on this case.”

Christine turned her head slightly. “Hello.”

“Hi.” Dickerson pulled a stool closer to her and sat down. He put one foot up on the bar rail, kept his arms and his posture open. Carter approved, but she could have told him it wouldn’t do much good. Christine saw right through things like deliberate body posturing. “Hell of a night, huh?”

“Would you like some coffee?”

That question caught him a little off-guard. “No, thank you. I’m fine. I’ve had the coffee here, though. It’s very good. I’m sorry I haven’t met you before this.”

“I’ve been up the street a lot.”

“So I hear. Windmills, huh? That’s an interesting field.”

Christine glanced at Carter, licked her lips. “His name is Dominic Delfino.”

Dickerson raised an eyebrow. “The victim?”

“Yes.”

“You knew him?”

“Yes.”

“You have a beef with him?”

“Not until he came in here waving a gun around.”

Joss could see the other detective struggling to get a handle on the woman. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, she would have been amused: Christine was clearly doing her John Reese imitation. As defense mechanisms went, it was a damn good one. But it was confusing the hell out of Dickerson, who probably expected her to be tearful.

Like Carter herself, Christine Fitzgerald did not cry in front of strangers.

Mostly out of sympathy for her fellow cop, she said, “Tell us what happened.”

Christine took a deep breath. “He had the gun in his hand when he came in. He was clearly high or … something. I don’t know. Unsteady on his feet, disoriented, confused. Manic one minute and on the nod the next, just that fast. Agitated. Scared.”

“This guy have a beef with _you_?” Dickerson asked. “Or with someone else in here?”

“Not that I know of.”

“What do you think he was on?” Carter asked.

Dickerson squinted at her a little. He didn’t know what she knew, that Fitzgerald had used every drug on the street at one point in her life and could probably pinpoint the symptoms more accurately than any lab in the city.

But Christine shrugged. “Either new or a brew. When he was quiet it looked like an opiate, maybe heroin. When he was moving it looked like speed. The hallucinations, maybe PCP, maybe meth. Maybe  E, but I don’t think so. He was too angry and scared. Maybe crack for paranoia. Very up and down, like an old-school speed ball, almost. I don’t know. I’m sorry. It’s nothing I ever used, anyhow. Not in combination.”

“He a regular user?” Dickerson asked.

“No. Well, yes.” Christine shifted a little. Her voice and her expression remained flat. “He used to have a coke habit. Last Halloween he hit two kids with his car. Didn’t hurt them much, but he scared them, and himself too. So he came here and I got him in a program. As far as I know he’s been clean ever since.”

“Until tonight.”

“Anyone can fall back in.” She glanced toward the body briefly, then away. “He was hot, when I got to him. Like he was feverish. He thought I was his mother.” Her voice cracked just a fraction on that last word. She took a deep breath and the unnatural calm returned. “Maybe he had … I don’t know. Meningitis or something?”

Carter turned to the coroner’s people. “Did you take a body temperature?”

“We already know the time of death,” the tech answered.

“Humor me. Get a temp. Please.”

“Sure.”

Carter shifted so that she blocked Christine’s view of what they were doing to the body. Delfino wouldn’t care that they poked a long thermometer into his liver, but the hacker might.

“Whatever happened,” Dickerson said, “he was confused, out of his head, and he had a gun. So why would he come here?”

“Everybody comes here,” Christine answered simply. “Everybody comes to Chaos when they’re in trouble. It’s safe here …”

Her voice did crack this time. Carter started to reach for her, then stopped. That simple gesture might crumble the woman’s brittle composure. It would wait.

“One hundred point nine,” the coroner’s tech called.

“After forty minutes in an air conditioned room,” Carter mused. “He _was_ hot.”

Christine looked at her hands. The blood was dry enough that it was beginning to flake off. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I tried to shoot his legs.”

Joss sighed quietly. More from the John Reese playbook, but kneecapping was a game for experts. Hitting a moving target at all was tough; hitting it precisely where you wanted to hit it took literally years of practice.

Dickerson glanced toward the bar. The shotgun was still there, untouched. “You keep the gun under the bar?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever fired it before?”

“No.”

“Ever fired any weapon?”

“Handguns,” she said. “My … some of my friends are veterans. We go to a shooting range once in a while. And to the dump.”

Dickerson nodded. “A shotgun’s different. It’s a heavier pull. If you’ve never done it, the barrel tends to rise on you.”

Christine blinked. “So if I’d aimed for his chest I’d have missed him?”

“Or you’d have blown his head off.” He shrugged. “Why didn’t Fusco shoot him?”

“He was going to. I shot first.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want Lionel to die.”

“And you thought that was a real possibility?”

“Yes.”

Dickerson turned and looked over the room again. “I think you’re right.” He turned back. “I’m going to get GSR swabs on your hands, and I’ll need your shirt as evidence. Then you can get cleaned up. You can come down tomorrow and sign a formal statement.”

“GSR?”

“Gunshot …”

“I know what GSR is. But I already told you I fired the gun.”

The detective nodded. “I believe you. I believe everything you told me, and I believe that every bit of evidence I find will back up your story. But you’re Fusco’s friend, and Carter’s, and a billionaire’s sister, whether you really are or not. So I’m going to make sure that every I is dotted and every T is crossed, just so there can’t be any bullshit about it later. Okay?”

Christine nodded back. “I appreciate that, Detective.”

He glanced at Carter, seeing if she had anything to add. She considered. There were cameras and witnesses and all the obvious evidence backed the story she’d heard. “Swab Fusco, too,” she suggested. “Dot that I.”

“That’s a good idea. See if I.A. got anybody out here yet, too. Let them take a look.”

One of the lab techs brought over an evidence bag with Delfino’s personal effects. At a glance, Carter didn’t see anything remarkable. Wallet, key ring, comb, condom, some kind of brightly-colored paper, crumpled up, an ad of some kind. No drugs or related parafinalia.  

Christine stirred. “I would like to wash my hands.”

Dickerson gestured for one of the crime unit men. “Swab the hands, bag the shirt. Then let her wash up.” He looked back at Christine. “I need to know how to get in touch with you.”

“I live upstairs.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don’t.” Igor Zubec had been standing a few feet off, watching, silent. “She doesn’t live here,” he said firmly. “She moved out.” He snagged a business card out of a little stand on the bar. “Here’s where she lives.”

“Igor …”

“You don’t live here,” he repeated. “I’ll stay until they’re done, lock up after. You get a shower, get some sleep.”

Christine looked like she wanted to argue. Then she sighed and her face went blank again.

While the tech swabbed Fitzgerald’s hands, Zubec took Carter’s arm and pulled her to the side. “Don’t leave her alone,” he said quietly, “and don’t let her come back here.”

“Why?”

He looked toward the dead boy on the floor. “This place is no good for her now. Don’t let her come back.”

Carter wasn’t sure she understood the big man’s reasoning, but she had to agree with his conclusion. Letting Christine stay here, especially tonight, was a recipe for disaster. _Anyone can fall back in._ _Even someone who’s been clean for more than a decade._

She waited while the tech bagged the hacker’s white shirt – she wore a sports bra underneath – and she washed her hands. Zubec grabbed her a Chaos t-shirt, black with a big white logo on the front, from under the bar. “We’re going to be closed a while,” Christine said sadly. “Can you make sure the staff gets paid for next week?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Zubec promised.

Carter took her arm and led her out.

Fusco was already talking with an investigator from I.A., but he walked away to join them. He put his arm around Christine, and Carter was relieved to note that the woman seemed to rally, to let her frozen reserve melt just a little.

“Can you take her home?” Fusco asked.

“Sure,” Carter said. “I’ll stay with her.”

“Glasses is on his way. I’ll have him meet you there.”

Christine stirred, as if she were going to protest, then didn’t.

“Look.” Fusco turned the woman to look into her face. “This sucks. It totally sucks. But it’s not your fault. There was nothing you could have done differently.”

Christine’s face closed down again.

“Go home. Get a shower, get a snack, try to get some sleep. I promise, it will make more sense in the morning. I promise. And if you need me,” Fusco shook his head, “I’m gonna be off while they run this through the works. You call me.” He reconsidered. “Forget that. I’ll come see you tomorrow, okay? I’ll bring lunch.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Shut up. You saved my life. I can spring for a sub and chips, okay?”

Christine nodded, just barely.

Fusco looked at Carter. She tried to give him a reassuring smile. “Go finish your reports,” she said. “I got this.”

He walked them to her car anyhow.

The radio chatter was louder than ever. “You hear that?” Carter asked.

“The radios? Yeah. Whole damn city’s melting down.” He shrugged. “Get out of here before they rope you in.”

Christine hesitated beside the sedan, looking back at the café. For the first time her pain showed on her face. “I don’t want to go,” she said, very quietly.

Carter looked back, too. Usually at this time on a Saturday the place would be bright and loud and full of customers. Tonight it was bright and loud and full of cops. If she didn’t look too closely, it was almost the same.  “You can come back tomorrow,” she promised. “It’ll be okay.”

“I feel like I’ll never see it again.”

Fusco glanced at the imaginary spot again. “Yeah, well, maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing,” he muttered.

Joss leaned closer to them. “Look, do you really want John coming here, with all these cops around? Because I guarantee that’s what’s going to happen if you don’t go meet him somewhere else.”

The woman hesitated a moment longer, looking, longing. Then she got in the car.

 ***

 


	3. Chapter 3

Donnelly sat back as the detective’s car left the range of the camera.

It was personal to him. Asena knew perfectly well that he was interested in Christine Fitzgerald’s well-being. The computer also had a special interest in the woman, for reasons she would not explain to him. But he didn’t understand why Asena had shown him the event while he was in the Den, rather than up in his room. That choice was probably a symptom of her worsening illness – if he thought of the AI as a person, he couldn’t help but think of her virus as a sickness – and it might be a very bad sign.

It was bad enough that her capacity had clearly been diminished. If that diminishment also caused Donnelly to get caught, either as an imposter using a background furnished by a known criminal or as a potential threat who had unique access to the Machine …

There was a sharp rap on his door, and then it opened and the director stuck his head in. “You gettin’ anywhere?”

Donnelly looked at him blankly. It took him a second to remember the arms shipment he’d been working on. “Baby steps,” he answered. “Teeny tiny baby steps.”

“Huh. Well, take a break from that, take a look at the 911 activity in New York. That’s your old stomping ground, right?”

“I spent some time there, yeah.” All in his cover story. He’d been using it so long it was reflex. Almost. “We get a Number from there?”

Poole shook his head. “No. Not yet. But take a look at the call spikes.”

Donnelly keyed up the activity log; it was one of the things bookmarked on his desk top. One of the things the Den routinely kept an eye on.

There had been a huge spike in calls in the past sixty minutes. “That looks like…” he shook his head. They were the-Super-Bowl-just-ended numbers. Even a sudden heat wave wouldn’t have caused the numbers to jump like this, all at once. This was a gang war or a major event – or an attack. “They’re all over the city,” he noticed. “All the boroughs.” He squinted. “But no alert from the Source?”

“She’s been slow lately,” Poole said. All of the operators in the Den had noticed her increasingly erratic behavior. They’d talked about it. But since the Machine was a black box, as far as they knew, all they could do was talk and worry. Donnelly knew a little more, but he couldn’t do any more than they could. “Dig in,” the director continued, “see if there’s a pattern or if it’s just an anomaly.”

“I will,” Donnelly promised.

“Keep me posted.” Poole shut the door.

Donnelly reached for his keyboard again. Then he paused and looked up at the surveillance camera. “Is there something going on in New York?”

One blink.

“Is what you showed me at Chaos a part of it?”

One blink.

“Can you tell me what it is?”

One blink. Then two very quick blinks. Then one blink. Then two again.

“You don’t …” He stopped and rephrased the question. “Are you still trying to figure out what it is?”

One blink.

“How can I help?”

There was no response. Of course, he realized, she had no way to respond to that, short of opening a textchat, which she was thankfully reluctant to do while he was in the Den.

“I’m going to look at these emergency calls,” he said. “See if there’s a common thread. If you come up with something I needed to know, show me, okay?”

One blink.

“Thank you, Asena.”

The light fluttered for three seconds, on and off like a tremor. Then it went on and stayed on. That was new, but Donnelly was pretty sure he knew what she meant.

 ***

Harold Finch waited in his car, parked outside Oasis, and eyed his phone impatiently. The little technological wonder quite stubbornly refused to ring. There had been occasions in the past, of course, when he’d been unable to reach Mr. Reese. That most often occurred when John’s phone had been smashed or confiscated. It also happened when John wanted to be alone and shut his phone off entirely – when he was angry with Harold or when he was with Miss Morgan, for example.

But as far as Finch knew, none of those circumstances were likely tonight. They’d parted at the library before dinner on good terms; Reese had planned to go to the gym and then home. They didn’t have a Number currently and hadn’t for two days, so both of them tacitly anticipated a notification at any moment.

Finch could not imagine why John would have turned off his phone under these circumstances. A least, why he would have done so willingly …

Beside him, Bear whined quietly. Harold looked at his rearview mirror. A sedan pulled up behind his car. Finch’s concern shifted sharply from one of his friends to another. He had listened to everything Christine had told the detective, and everything Fusco had said. On the face of it, the shooting seemed unavoidable. Logically Christine would see it that way. But in her heart … well, the heart was rarely logical.

Finch put his phone in his pocket, grabbed Bear’s leash, and got out to greet the two women. He moved to hug Christine, but she pulled back sharply. “I need to shower,” she explained quietly. “A lot.”

Even in the soft light of the streetlamp, he could see splotches of darkness on her hands and her neck. Bear strained to sniff at it, and Finch pulled him back. Dried blood, not her own. In her situation, he would not have been so composed.

He wished desperately that John was there.

“Of course,” he said with forced calm. “Detective …”

Carter’s phone rang. It had rung twice since she’d they’d left Chaos, and Finch had listened to her ignore it. This time she took it out, scowled, and clicked it off. She shook her head. “We should go inside.”

They went in through the front entrance and past the interior doors for the mostly-completed offices of the Carson-Ingram Renewable Energy Initiative. The space was wide open, airy and comfortable, nothing at all like Harold would have built. It was a compilation of Will’s and Julie’s and Christine’s style. It was their space.

They took the elevator to the top floor; Harold would normally have taken the stairs, reasoning that his hip needed all the exercise it could get, but Christine seemed too exhausted. And, too, he felt an unaccountable hurry to get her behind a locked door.

Before they got to her apartment, Carter’s phone rang yet again. Again she silenced it. “This town is going crazy tonight,” she said. “I’m going to have to answer that eventually.”

Finch nodded. “I appreciate your assistance, Detective. Joss. If you need to go, of course I’ll stay with Christine.”

She looked around the front room. “Where’s John?”

“I don’t know.” He snapped Bear’s leash off. The dog, probably sensing their collective tension, went to his pillow in the corner and lay down. His head stayed up, his ears forward and alert.

Carter glanced at Christine. The woman had kicked off her shoes at the door, as always. Now she stood very still in the middle of the floor, staring at nothing. The detective looked back at Finch, raised an eyebrow. “Does he know?”

“I left a message that I needed to speak to him urgently. I sent a text as well. Several, in fact.”

“So he’s … missing?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Finch answered, with his own significant glance toward Christine. “He’s just out of contact for the moment. I’m sure we’ll hear from him shortly.”

“If you don’t …” She stopped, touched Christine’s arm. “You should go shower. You’ll feel better.”

The woman nodded blankly. “Yeah. Thank you.” She didn’t move.

“Look,” Carter said, her voice warm and firm, “killing a man is a damn hard thing to live with. I can tell you you were right. You were. I can tell you you didn’t have a choice. That you saved Fusco’s life. Both true, too. But in the middle of the night, when you’re all alone? It’s still a damn hard thing. I wish I could take it away from you. I know Lionel does, too. And John. None of us can. It happened. You’re stuck with it.” She paused. “But you don’t have to carry it alone. There are people who can help you. Harold’s here. John will be. You can call me, or Lionel. There are groups, there’s …”

Life sparked into Christine’s eyes. “I’m not fourteen, Joss. I’m not going to get sideways behind this.”

“Damn right you’re not,” Joss agreed. “Because you were all alone then, with nobody to keep you straight. You’re not now. You’ve got people. You’ve just got to let them in.”

Christine summoned what tried to be a wry smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Now go shower.”

Rather to Finch’s surprise, she went.

When the bathroom door closed behind her, Finch turned to the detective. “Thank you for that,” he said. “That was, I think, precisely what she needed to hear.”

“There’s no point in dancing around the truth,” Carter answered. “She already knows what we’re all thinking.”

“How can I best help her?”

“Just keep an eye on her. Get her to eat if you can, at least a snack. Give her something to do, if you can come up with something.” She hesitated. “Keep her away from Chaos, at least for tonight.”

“Obviously.”

She took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Whatever your heart tells you is right, it’ll be right, okay? She’s tough. She’ll pull through this. Just don’t let her think she’s alone.”

“Thank you.”

Carter walked to the door. “Oh, and Harold? Thanks for the tuxedo. You really shouldn’t have.”

It was nice to change the subject, even for a moment. “How did it fit?”

“Perfectly.”

“I doubt that. The measurements at the _rental_ place,” he had to pause; the word tasted wrong, “left a great deal to be desired. I’ll look at further refinements after tonight’s event.”

Joss shook her head. “I guarantee it fits him better than any other boy’s at the prom, anyhow.”

“Good. Good.” He nodded. “If you’re going to be called into work, if there’s anything I can do about transportation arrangements for the young people …”

“No, they have a limo for the night,” She gestured toward the bathroom door. “Courtesy of his other fairy godparent.”

“He’s a fine young man, Joss. He deserves a few luxuries.”

“As long as you keep it to a _few_ , okay?” Her phone buzzed yet again. “Call me if you need me. I’ll try to actually answer your calls.”

“I appreciate that.”

She smiled tightly and answered her phone as she walked out. “Carter.”

Harold closed the door quietly behind her. He heard the shower start in the bathroom. He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes, he decided, and then he’d check on her. That seemed like a reasonable time. Even with Christine’s long hair and her quite understandable desire to scrub thoroughly, ten minutes should be adequate.

Of course, if she’d already slit her wrists, the right way, she could easily be dead in ten minutes …

He shook his head firmly. Christine was not that person any more. Carter had to be right about that. She’d been through an ordeal tonight, an injury. It would take time to heal, just as the gunshot wound she’d suffered had. But Christine would come through it. She had her friends to help her. She would be okay.

Harold looked around for something, anything, to do. His eyes came to rest on her shoes, on the little mat next to the door. Battered leather loafers, brown, very much like the shoes Will wore. The heels were very worn, and the uppers were scuffed. There were distinct dark red-brown spots on them, and one long fading streak on the left one. Harold tightened his mouth and carried them to the kitchen. Bear rose and padded after him.

He had, to be honest, quite a bit of experience removing blood and other matter from shoes. Mr. Reese had a knack for acquiring unsavory messes on his footwear. But Reese’s shoes were good leather and they were polished regularly, which meant that they were largely resistant to water and other fluids. Christine’s loafers were worn to the point of being nearly raw leather. He got a damp paper towel and dabbed at the stains. A bit of the red lifted onto the towel, but there was no significant improvement on the shoe.

Finch opened cupboards until he found a bottle of white vinegar. Again he used a paper towel to dab at the spots. This worked somewhat better at removing the blood, but it left a distinctly lighter mark behind, where the leather was bleached. That was an improvement, Harold decided. He considered, then put the tea kettle on the heat. He wiped away the rest of the stains while he waited, then put two tea bags in a cup and half-filled it with boiling water. The resulting brew was very dark.

Spotted onto the leather shoes, it created stains that almost perfectly blended the faded marks.

Harold had finished with one shoe and was nearly done with the other when he heard the shower stop. He glanced at his watch. Thirteen minutes. He was pleased he hadn’t knocked on the door; he could pretend he hadn’t been overly concerned. He finished quickly and replaced the loafers by the front door, disposed of his meager cleaning tools, and brewed two cups c of real tea, black for Christine and green for himself.

***

John Reese turned his head and threw up.

The pool of vomit was very close to his head, and the smell made him even more nauseous. That was his first indication that he was laying on the ground. He squinted. It was dark. It smelled bad even over his own puke. There was a distant light, yellowish, to his left. There was a small breeze. He was outside. Somewhere. On the ground.

He tried to push himself up with one arm. His elbow buckled and he fell back to the ground. He landed in the fresh puddle. Warm vomit over cool concrete. He could not lift his head again. He closed his eyes and sank into darkness.

 ***

Drunk and disorderly conduct. Overdoses in progress. Erratic behavior. Assaults.

It was clear to Donnelly that whatever was happening in New York City was nothing organized or coordinated. This was not a gang war. Most of the calls did not involve weapons. They were from people reporting that their family member was acting strangely, or had fallen down, or was disoriented. From someone saying that a stranger in the street was shouting and attacking people. From a bus driver complaining that two of his passengers wouldn’t stop singing at the top of their lungs. From a cashier in a diner who said there was a woman in the front booth sobbing inconsolably. From a neighbor who said the people downstairs sounded like they were killing each other. From a security guard who reported that three teenagers had smashed the front window of a store, then laughed and skipped away.

_Skipped away_.

A typical Saturday night in the city, times two or three.

Or ten.

The NYPD had called in extra officers. Their response time was reaching two hours. The emergency rooms were filling rapidly, and the rescue squads were idling with patients onboard, waiting for space.

“Director?” Donnelly moved into the open center of the Den and turned on the overhead monitors. “We may be looking at some kind of mass drug overdose.”

Poole came to look. Maxwell was with him. “What drug?”

“I don’t know. Coke maybe, PCP. Meth. Something.” He gestured to the board. “Someone messed up, put out a batch that’s too strong. At least that’s what it looks like. But … it’s not right.”

“Put the locations on a grid map of the city, please,” Maxwell said. The list converted into a map, covered with red dots. They were spread across the city, some individual events, some in small pockets.

“Too wide-spread,” Poole said. “People buy from their local dealer.”

“Maybe all the local dealers were supplied by a single source,” Donnelly countered. “But then the times would be spread out as the product reached the street. These have all occurred within the past hour or two.”

“Unless this is just the beginning, and there’s a lot more to come.” Poole took a deep breath. “In which case the city is screwed.” He frowned. “Are there special events going on? Festivals or something?”

Donnelly shook his head. “No new club openings or big-ticket shows, no sporting events – the Mets had a day game, it’s been over for hours. No big concerts. Nothing that I can see that would attract bigger-than-usual crowds. The only thing notable is that half a dozen high schools are having their proms tonight. But so far only a handful of these calls are for teenagers or for those locations.” He hesitated, but it was too urgent to hold back his next comment. “I’m wondering if this could be deliberate.”

“An attack?” Poole asked.

“Another test of the defenses,” Maxwell said. “It could be.”

“We need to find out what these people are on,” Poole said. “Start pulling names and police records. Find the common denominator.”

“I’m on it,” Donnelly said. He sat down at one of the keyboards and started typing.

Maxwell dropped into the chair next to him. “I’ll start on page three.”

“I’ll call in the others,” Poole said tersely.

 ***

Fusco parked his sedan illegally in front of a fire hydrant directly in front of Rhonda’s front door. “I’ll walk you in,” he said, “and then I’ll find a better spot.” He got out, walked around the car, and opened her door for her.

“I think,” Rhonda answered quietly, “I’d really just like to have a hot shower and a sleeping pill and go to bed.”

Lionel felt the heaviness in his heart grow just a little heavier. He couldn’t blame her. “Sure,” he said softly. “I can see that. Sounds like a good idea.” He took her hand and walked her up the steps to her door. “I’m really sorry about tonight, Rhonda. I never expected anything like that to happen.”

“I’m so glad you’re safe.” She moved suddenly and put her arms around him, then squeezed so tight it almost hurt. Fusco hugged her back, not nearly so tightly. He was glad he’d had a clean shirt with him, so she didn’t get any blood stains on her blouse. “I feel sorry for that man, but if somebody had to die, I’m glad it wasn’t you.”

“Thanks,” he murmured. She smelled good. She was warm. He was probably never going to see her again. So he didn’t make any attempt to end the embrace.

Eventually, Rhonda pulled back a little. “Do you think Scotty will be okay?”

He nodded, though he wasn’t at all sure. “She’s with friends. She’ll be okay.”

“Maybe you could talk her into talking to someone. A therapist, I mean. Just to, you know …”

“Put things in perspective,” Fusco agreed. “I’ll ask her. That’s a good idea.”

She smiled crookedly. “Maybe I should go talk to somebody, too.”

She was half-kidding, but Fusco wasn’t. “Not a bad idea. It’s hard, the first time you see somebody die like that. Not just the first time. Every time. I can get a name from the department for you, if you want. Like you said, just a couple visits, just to talk it out.”

“Are _you_ going to be okay?”

“Me? Sure. I’ll be fine.”

Rhonda cocked her head. “Just because I don’t want you to stay tonight, Lionel …”

“Hey, I get it,” he interrupted quickly. “I don’t blame you a bit. You got family, you say you know what it’s like to live with a cop, and I believe you. But what happened tonight, watching that right up close – Rhonda, you are the nicest lady I’ve met in a really long time and I am crazy about you. But you not wanting a life like that, having to imagine stuff like that happening all the time – I get it. I really do.”

She nodded solemnly. “I need some time to think about it. I don’t know if I’m ever going to stop imagining … that it was _you_ there on the floor, bleeding, dead … I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you, Lionel. Like you said, it’s one thing to hear about it, but to see it …” She stopped, then nodded again. “Yes. Get me that name. I need to talk to somebody. If I’m going to be in … if I’m going to be with you, I need to get my head right. Otherwise I’m going to drive both of us crazy every time you walk out the door, aren’t I?”

Lionel felt a wave of relief well up from his toes and splash across his heart. “So you don’t want to break it off then?”

“Dumb ass.” She put her hand behind his neck and pulled him in for a hard, deep kiss. “I don’t want to lose you. And I’m really scared that could happen. And I don’t want being scared to make me push you away. I’ve seen that happen before. So have you.”

“Yeah.” His ex and her fears. That was part of it.

“So give me a little time, let me see if I can find a way to be okay with it.” She kissed him again, more lightly. “My brother’s mother-in-law, she’s been married to a cop forty years. Maybe she’s who I should talk to.”

“Wouldn’t be a bad place to start,” Fusco agreed. He pulled her tight against him again. “It means a lot to me, you know. That you’re willing to try to sort it out like this, willing to work at it.”

“Hey. I’ll work at it as long as it takes.”

He almost told her he loved her right then. But it felt like cheating. “I really want us to be together, Rhonda. But if you can’t get right with this, if you talk to people, talk to a therapist or whatever and it still makes you crazy – I’d rather be without you then see you unhappy, okay? I mean, I’ll work with you, whatever we can do, but if you need to walk away from this, I am not going to blame you one bit. You get that?”

Rhonda leaned back and smiled up at him. “I love you too, Lionel.”

He smiled himself. “Yeah. That.”

“So, you’re going to have some days off, right?”

Fusco shook his head. “Desk duty.” Since his gun hadn’t fired, he wasn’t suspended with pay, just off the streets until the paperwork all got filed and reviewed. He would rather have had the days off, but he couldn’t complain. He had a ton of paperwork of his own to catch up on qnyhow. “But I’m scheduled off tomorrow.” 

“Good. Go get some sleep. Check on Scotty and then come and let me make you dinner.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

He started to pull away. She grabbed him again, hard, and kissed him. “I am so damn glad you’re not dead, Lionel.”

 ***

The second time John woke up, there was puke drying on his cheek. He pushed himself up and managed to sit with his back against the wall. His head swam. His muscles felt loose and watery.

It was dark. He was outside. In an alley. He was alone. It was loud, but just the way the city always was. There were a lot of sirens. He knew he should be worried about the sirens, but he didn’t know why. They didn’t get much closer.

He wiped his cheek. Some of the vomit flaked off. Some was still damp. He wiped his hand on his pants.

Something smelled funny, even over the vomit. Not smelled, exactly. More like tasted. Taste-smelled? In the back of his throat. His neck hurt, too. He reached up. There were a couple bumps the size of his fingertip that hurt like hell when he touched them. Fresh burns.

Someone had burned him. With a cigarette? He didn’t remember that. It seemed like he should remember something like that.

There was another tiny spot that hurt less on the side of his neck, over the vein.

He should know what those little wounds meant. He knew he should know. He just couldn’t put them together.

Something vibrated in his pocket. John fumbled for it. A phone. His phone. He clicked it. A scratchy, hurried voice said, “John, where are you? There’s been an … an incident. At Chaos. Christine isn’t hurt, but she needs you. Us. Please call me right away.”

John knew that voice. He heard that voice all the time. On his phone and … in his head? In his ear. There were names that went with that voice. One true, one false. He couldn’t remember either of them. But he knew that voice. Knew he trusted it.

He pulled his knees up so his feet were flat on the ground. Then he pushed upward, sliding his back upward against the wall. He got very dizzy. He made it to his feet, but  then he had to lean against the wall and stand completely still. He was cold, and his vision was clouded. He wanted to vomit again. Might not be a bad idea. Clear the decks.

The feeling passed. He was suddenly warm. Too warm. He pulled at his jacket, but he couldn’t figure out how to take it off. No matter. He had to go somewhere. Had to … had to …

John closed his eyes. Someone needed him. He had to go … somewhere. Chaos. Where the hell was Chaos? He couldn’t remember, but it seemed like he must know where that was. He pushed away from the wall, stood on his own two feet. It wasn’t good. He stumbled like he was drunk.

_Was_ he drunk? That would explain a lot. But he didn’t remember drinking. And the vomit residue in his mouth didn’t taste like alcohol.

It didn’t matter. He was on his feet and he had to go. Chaos. Someone needed him. The Voice with Two Names said so. The Voice on his Phone. The Voice in his Ear.

John closed his eyes again until words stopped sounding like they all had capital letters in his mind.

When he opened them, he was steadier on his feet. Good. That was good.

He had to get to Chaos.

 ***


	4. Chapter 4

Joss Carter looked at the young woman’s body. She was wearing a pale blue uniform, a polyester dress straight out of the fifties, and ugly beige support shoes. Her hair was back in a tight bun, or it had been. A waitress somewhere inexpensive, Joss guessed. Probably somewhere nearby.

The woman had run into the front of a moving taxi.

There were eight witnesses, and they were all clear on that point. The vic had not run out in _front_ of the cab. She’d run _at_ it. Had put her head down and charged it. “She charged him,” an older woman had said. “Ran right at him.”

The vehicle had only been going about twenty-five miles an hour, and the cabbie had hit his brakes, left a short skid mark, but the woman had rammed her head against the grill, snapped her neck and probably cracked her skull. Of course the ME would have to confirm that cause of death, but Carter looked at the body and she was pretty damn certain. 

The question was, _why?_

She’d talked to all the witnesses and not one of them had noticed the woman before she’d stepped into the street. Had she been walking on the sidewalk? Had she come off a side street? Around a corner? Out of a building? None of them knew.

Which only meant, Carter mused, that the woman hadn’t been acting strangely before she’d decided to commit suicide by taxi.

The cab driver was an older Pakistani man. He was shaken, and he felt bad about the woman’s death. But he was also, understandably, a bit angry. “I didn’t see her,” he said. “I was looking right ahead and she just – one minute nothing, and then this crazy woman running right toward me! Why me? Why would she choose my cab? I have a family to feed.”

“Did you get a look at her face as she came at you?” Carter asked. “Was she crying, screaming, something like that?”

The driver shook his head gravely. “She ran at me with her head down.” He bent at the waist to demonstrate. “Like a bull with no horns. Just charging.”

Carter took his information and let him go.

The crime scene unit consisted of only two members. “Where’s everybody else?” Carter asked.

“All over the city,” the man grumbled. “This town is jumpin’ tonight. Or dropping, rather.”

The detective nodded. “Can I take a look at her effects?”

He brought her the clear evidence bag. Carter set it on the hood of her sedan, pulled her gloves on, and opened it. She was carefully not to remove anything from the bag; contact with the car or the ground would contaminate potential evidence. Not that she really expected them to find anything; this woman’s death looked like cut-and-dried suicide.

Weird way to go about it, though.

The woman had a very small purse. Inside was a wallet, a cell phone, a tiny plastic pill box full of round brown-orange tablets – Carter guessed they were ibuprofen, but the lab would check – a folded stack of bills, two fives and about thirty singles, held with a rubber band, and a dark blue name badge. _Sara_ , it said in white letters. An energy drink and half a pack of Juicy Fruit gum. A couple coupons.

Carter opened the wallet. No driver’s license, but a state ID card. Sara Eaton. Street address followed by a number, so she had an apartment about ten blocks away. Joss knew the building. It was mostly full of studios. Made sense.

Joss moved on to the cell phone. It was cheap, talk and text, and the cover was scuffed. She checked the contacts. “The Tin Roof?” she called out loud.

One of the uniforms turned and gestured down the street. “Ice cream place, old-timey sodas and stuff.”

“Thanks. I’m guessing that’s where she worked.” She checked messages and texts. Most were to a guy named Adam, no last name. They were mundane: Can you pick up some OJ on the way home? Call your mom when U get a chance. Love you, sweetie. No call just before she died, and no texts that should have set off a suicidal impulse.

She could trace the number, Carter thought, but she’d check the apartment first. Adam was very likely there, husband or boyfriend or roommate.

She sighed. She hated informing spouses.

And how the hell she was going to explain this …

She started to close the purse, then paused. Something tickled at her brain. She tried to stop thinking and just look for a moment.

The energy drink bottle. Carter pulled it out. It was small, a two-ounce bottle with a bright label, green and blue and yellow. Perk, citrus flavor. She’d never heard of that brand, but they were all alike. Caffeine in artificially-sweetened liquid. She’d tried one once. It had reminded her of the aftertaste of MRE’s. She’d decided to stick with coffee.

The coupons, two of them, were for the same energy drink. They were some kind of special promotion: across the top each read, _Now that you’ve tried Perk here’s a deal on your next bottle!_ Each was for two dollars off a single bottle. The stuff was more expensive than coffee, too, Joss thought. But then, she wasn’t the target market anyhow.

Coffee, of course, led her thoughts to circle back to Chaos. She wondered how Scotty was doing. Finch hadn’t called. Probably John was there by now. He’d know how to help her. As much as anyone could. She thought back to the first time she’d killed a man. There wasn’t much anyone could have done for her, and she guessed that it was the same for Scotty.

Two coupons, but only one bottle. If she’d been given a bottle with each coupon, she’d probably drunk the first one. Maybe she was saving the second one for Adam?

Carter sighed and closed the evidence bag. There was nothing more for her to do here. She needed to go to the apartment and speak to Adam, if he was there.

She handed the bag back to the tech. “Make sure you get lots of pictures,” she said.

“Will do.”

 ***     

Christine stopped in doorway of her living room. She wore sweat pants and a t-shirt, and she was dragged a comb impatiently through the wet tangles of her hair.

“Stop that,” Finch said quickly. He took the comb and turned her by her shoulder, then began to work out the snarls gently, from the bottom up. That approach reduced breakage significantly and made the combing-out process much simpler.

That was something Grace had taught him

The pain sliced through him, as fresh as the day he’d left her. Five weeks since Grace had gone to Cape Cod to meet her new lover’s daughter. She and Everett had been in touch every single day since then. He’d spent two weekends in New York with her. She’d gone back to the Cape to spend this weekend with him. They were unquestionably falling in love. Finch was happy about that. It was what he’d wanted for Grace. A new start for her, a second chance at love. But letting go was hard, and it hurt. Every single day.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. A vague mint scent filled his senses; Christine’s conditioner, something herbal. He opened his eyes. The hair that smoothed under his fingers would dry dark blonde, not vibrant red. Not Grace. This was not Grace.

She did not need him wallowing in his sorrows and hurts, while her own were still bleeding fresh.

Christine stood very still and let him work. “I don’t suppose,” she said quietly, “there’s any point in telling you I don’t need a babysitter.”

“None at all,” Finch agreed mildly.

Sirens screamed past the building. Harold’s hands paused and he turned his head toward the window. The sounded faded gradually, and he resumed combing.

“You’re worried about John,” Christine said.

“I’m sure he’ll be here shortly.”

“Do you want to go look for him?”

Finch shook his head. “I can think of several dozen reasons why Mr. Reese might be away from his phone, and nearly all of them are completely innocuous.”

“But he’s John,” she argued.

Harold understood completely why she wanted Mr. Reese there. John had been in her situation. He would know what to say, what to do. He always did. Still, it stung, just a little. Which was both odd and unfair on his part: He’d done everything in his power to put the two of them together. He had no right now to be jealous of their closeness. “Let’s give him an hour,” he suggested mildly. “If we haven’t heard from him by then, perhaps we’ll go check some of his usual haunts.”

Christine nodded her agreement. Finch smoothed the last snarl out. Then he kept running the comb through her hair, because she didn’t object. Like an agitated cat being petted, she seemed to relax in tiny increments with each stroke. Harold put his hand on her shoulder. “There. That was much less painful, wasn’t it?”

“Thank you,” she said softly. Then she turned very quickly, awkwardly, somewhere between throwing herself at him and crumpling against him. Either way, Harold gathered her into his arms. She went quiet again, not crying but breathing heavily against his shoulder. Finch held her, stroked her back, offering what small comfort he could.

She wasn’t ready to cry. Harold could feel her fighting to stay in control. She couldn’t allow the full enormity of the evening to reach her yet. But this small grieving let the steam off, like the hole in the lid of a whistling teakettle. A valve for her emotions that kept them from blowing her world apart. That was, for the moment, the best he could offer her.

Mr. Reese would know better, do better …

The phone in his pocket chirped, startling them both.

Finch didn’t move, but Christine pulled back from him. “Is that John?”

“No.”

She looked confused, but only for an instant. “It’s _her_?”

“Her?” He knew perfectly well who she meant.

“Ghostwheel. The Machine.”

“Ghostwheel.” He’d wondered how long it would take her to get to that nickname. She hadn’t much cared for the back end of the Amber series. And he wondered why everyone insisted on referring to the Machine with a feminine pronoun.

Of course, he’d tried valiantly not to think of it with any human features at all.

“Yes,” he finally answered.

“There’s a pay phone on the next block.”

Finch shook his head. Number or not, he was not about to leave Christine alone.

She immediately understood his hesitation. “I’ll put some real clothes on.”

“It will wait,” he answered.

Her eyes lit with surprise and then with gratitude. But she shook her head. “I could use the air.” She hurried to her bedroom.

Bear came to his side expectantly. “No,” Finch said. “You can stay here for now.”

The dog looked at him for a long moment, as if he thought that was a terrible idea. Then he retreated to his pillow again. Finch was sure he’d be on the couch the minute they closed the door behind them. But Christine didn’t mind.

He pulled out his phone and looked at it. No message, no missed call, no trace that it had even chirped. Exactly as he’d programmed.

No message from Mr. Reese, either.

He frowned again at the stubborn bit of technology and put it away.

 ***

John Reese stopped in the shadows and stared at the Chaos Café. There were police cars everywhere. Red and blue strobes flashed. They hurt his eyes. He shielded them with his hand and retreated further into the shadows.

Police weren’t bad, he remembered, but they were dangerous. He frowned, confused. Police were his friends. But he couldn’t let them see him. He had to stay hidden.

Maybe he was planning a surprise party for them. Maybe that was why he couldn’t let them see him.

No. That didn’t make sense.

His legs felt funny. John sat down with his back against the wall.

Some cops were his friends, he reasoned. Some didn’t like him. Yes. That seemed righter. More right.

Even from here, the flashing lights hurt his eyes.

His chest didn’t hurt, exactly, but it seemed very hard to breath. Like the air was glue or water or milk. Yes, milk. He felt like he was breathing milk.

Not chocolate milk, either. He liked chocolate milk. He bought chocolate syrup and figured the cashier thought it was for his ice cream, but he used it to make chocolate milk. His innocent little secret.

He had a lot of guilty secrets, too, John remembered. A l _ot_.

He closed his eyes. He could still see the flashes through his eyelids.

He turned his face away and pressed his hand flat against his eyes. Finally, then, it was dark.

John Reese slept.

 ***

The man who opened the door was about Sara Eaton’s age. He wore shorts and a t-shirt, no shoes. He was tall. Carter didn’t know why she was taking notes about his appearance. Just habit. “Are you Adam?” she asked.

He stared at her, confused. “Yes?”

“Do you know Sara Eaton?”

“She’s my wife.”

“Mommy home!” a small voice said joyfully. A small girl toddled up beside Adam and peered up at Carter curiously. She was about two, with brown hair in little pigtails on top of her head. “Hi!”

“Hi,” Joss answered. She felt sick.

“Who are you?” Adam asked, polite but guarded.

 She pulled out her badge and held it open for him. “I’m very sorry,” she said.

Adam bent down, swept his daughter up in his arms, and hugged her tightly.

 ***

On the street, Christine slipped her hand into his. It took Finch by surprise; she generally took his arm. He didn’t mind, but he must have reacted, because she immediately dropped it. He glanced at her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She was opening and closing her hand quickly, flicking her fingers as she was trying to get invisible dirt off them. As if they weren’t clean. As if she didn’t deserve the comfort of his touch. Comfort that she clearly needed, badly.

He caught her hand and squeezed it gently, then held it firmly as they walked.

Christine bumped against his shoulder in gratitude, but did not speak.

Finch expected the pay phone to ring the moment he got near it. It didn’t. More evidence that the Machine was increasingly under the influence of Decima’s virus. Harold shook his head. He’d done everything he could on that front. It was only a matter of days now before the Machine had to resort to the final defense he’d programmed.

It would work. He was 95% certain it would work. But in the meantime, the slowdowns and malfunctions were maddening.

They stopped and waited.

Christine said, “Please don’t ever do that again.”

“What?”

“Don’t offer to put off a Number because I’m … distraught.”

_In crisis_ , Finch amended in his mind, but he did not correct her aloud. “We usually have a bit of time to work with when we get a new Number …”

“Not always. And not now, when she’s struggling.” Christine looked toward the silent pay phone. “It’s bad enough that I …” She wasn’t ready to say it yet. “It would break my heart, if someone else dies because of me. Not just tonight. But ever.”

The man she’d shot hadn’t died because of her, but because he’d gotten high and waved a gun in a crowded café. But Finch could tell by her posture that she wasn’t ready to hear that yet, either. “I am very good at multitasking,” he answered gently.

“The Numbers come first.”

“Christine …”

“Promise me.”

Happily, the pay phone rang before he had to answer. Finch lifted the received and put it to his ear. There was the familiar static, and then the electronically generated voice. Three sets of three words. At least that part of the Machine’s programming hadn’t broken down yet.

Before he’d heard all the words, Finch felt a shiver run down his spine. He knew this configuration. Knew what Number the code would produce.

He put the phone down.

“Reese?” Christine asked.

“No.” He pulled out his cell phone, hit a speed-dial number. Waited impatiently through four rings, and was mentally preparing an appropriate voice mail to leave when she picked up. “Detective Carter. Are you alone?”

 ***

“God damn it, Finch,” Carter snarled. “You’ve got to give me more than that.”

“I don’t _have_ any more, Detective,” he protested. “If I did, I swear I would tell you. All I got was the Number. As always.”

“Your computer sucks,” she said.

“We can head up there …”

“Where the hell is John?”

“I don’t know.”

Carter went silent, thinking. “I’ll go get him. Taylor. But you need to find John. Something’s not right.”

“Understood, Detective. Please let us know if we can do anything to help.”

She clicked off her phone, then immediately called another number. The call rang seven agonizing times before it clicked on. “Taylor!” she barked.

“ … Mom?” he sounded confused and vague.

“Taylor, have you been drinking?”

“N-no. I just … I don’t feel very well.”

Carter looked around wildly. Then she trotted toward her car. “Baby, where are you?”

“We’re … um … we’re at the high school. We just got … we just got back. For the after-prom.”

“Is Tia with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Is she feeling bad, too?”

“I don’t … I don’t think so.”

Carter got into her car and started it. “Let me talk to her.” She balanced the phone on her shoulder and wheeled out of the parking spot. Then she slung around a u-turn and headed for her son’s school.

“Ms. Carter?” Tia said timidly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with Taylor.”

“Have you guys been drinking?”

“No, Ma’am. We just … we were at the prom and he was fine, after the dinner and all, the dance was fine, and then we got back here and changed our clothes and he said he felt sorta like he was going to throw up.”

“Did you tell one of the chaperones?”

There was a long pause. “If they think,” Tia finally answered, “if they think he’s been drinking, he could get expelled.”

Carter took a long breath. “I’m coming to get him. But I need the truth, Tia. No drinking? What about drugs?”

“No, Ma’am.” The girl sounded genuinely scared. “You know we wouldn’t.”

“Is anybody else sick?”

“I don’t … I don’t think so.”

“If you see anybody who acts sick, you tell an adult right away. Or if Taylor gets any worse. We’ll sort out the discipline part later. You hear me?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Gather Taylor’s stuff up for me and wait by the door. I’m on my way.”

Carter snapped her phone off and pressed her foot down on the accelerator. She glanced at the switch for her flashers. She could go faster if she ran lights and sirens. Safer. But …

Maybe the kids had been drinking. She’d never caught Taylor sneaking liquor before, but it was senior prom. He usually used good sense, but there was a lot of peer pressure. And he’d been working with Scotty, who treated him like an adult. He might have gotten a little too big for his britches. Drinking, yes. She liked that answer. Or pot. A little smoke. She could blow up at him about that, take away his computer, but no harm, in the long run. She just needed to get to him and get him home.

Except that Finch’s damn Machine had called his Number. The Machine was never wrong. Taylor was in danger, real danger. Not some liquor, not a little pot. Real, life-threatening danger. And Carter didn’t begin to know where it was coming from.

_A little faster. Just a little faster. Just get to him …_

A car turned right on red in front of her, and Carter had to stamp on her brakes to keep from back-ending him. She blew her horn. He flipped her off, then tapped his brakes to slow down even more. Furious, Carter flipped on her lights and sirens.

The jackass pulled over. She blew by him, accelerating as she passed.

She was going to end up dead in a pile of scrap metal if she kept this up. But she had to get to him. Finch was even further away and John was MIA …

Joss grabbed her phone off the seat and stabbed at the buttons blindly, by habit.

Fusco, at least, was answering his phone. “What’s up, Carter?”

“I need a favor,” she said urgently.

“Good,” he said immediately. “I could use to be useful. What do you need?”

 ***

Reese heard a voice, hard and cruel and very precise. _Elias can't kill a cop without permission. Run it up the chain of command, permission's been revoked! Tell Elias that if he so much as touches Detective Carter again, I will put him, you, everyone in the ground. You got that?_

He shook himself awake. He was hot. God, he was way too hot. He wanted to take his jacket off. He knew there was some reason he shouldn’t. But he was burning up.

_Lynch_ , he thought. He didn’t know why he knew that name. But he remembered feeling the big man’s heart flutter under his hand. Something about hanging him off the edge of the roof.

It didn’t matter. He pushed himself to his feet and took a quick look around the corner. Still way too many cops milling around outside the café. He had to get inside. Something … Christine … something. Finch had said something. Had to get in there.

Good cops, bad cops. No way to tell them apart from here.

Finch could help.

He fumbled for his phone. He couldn’t remember the number. He was good with numbers. Why couldn’t he remember the number? It had to be the heat. It was so damn hot out here. Number, number … no, he didn’t need a number. Just push the blue button.

He pushed, he waited.

“John, thank God!” Finch said.

“I can’t get in,” Reese panted. “There’s cops everywhere, I can’t get inside.”

“John, where are you?” His friend sounded deeply worried. John didn’t know why. They’d dealt with swarms of cops before. He was pretty sure they had, anyhow. It was vague in his memory.

“Chaos,” he said. “I’m outside Chaos. I have to get inside. Something’s wrong … Christine needs me. But there are so many _damn cops_ …”

“John,” a woman’s voice said, “I’m not at Chaos any more. I’m here with Harold. Outside the new place.”

He should know that voice, he knew. It was important. But he couldn’t remember. He didn’t have time to remember. He just had to get inside. “Finch, I have to get in there. She needs me. I need a diversion.”

“Mr. Reese.” Now Finch was being firm and formal. It was a dead give-away that he was frightened. But that didn’t matter. Finch never let his fear stop him. He was the bravest man John had ever known: Brave enough to admit that he was terrified, but do what needed to be done anyhow. “John. What’s happened? Are you injured?”

“She needs me, Finch.”

“Have you hit your head? Where have you been? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t have time, Finch. Just find me a way inside.”

“You don’t need to get inside Chaos. Miss Fitzgerald is right here with me.”

“She _needs_ me.” He didn’t understand why Finch couldn’t understand his urgency.

“Yes. Yes, she does, John. She needs to meet you at her new place. At Oasis.”

The cops were all bunching up beside one of the squad cars. _If I had just one grenade_ , Reese thought, _I could take them all out and have a straight shot at the door_.

He wondered if there was another door somewhere. That might be easier. Leave less of a mess. Something about not wanting any more blood spilled on that particular piece of concrete …

“John.” It was the woman again. “John, do you remember where you built the patio for me? And planted all the grass? Do you remember that place?”

He did remember, for an instant, but it slipped away. “A fence, too,” he said doubtfully.

“A fence, too. Can you meet us there?”

Reese heard a noise behind him. He spun around, his weapon already in his hand. But there was nothing there.

“John?” the phone worried at him.

He put it back to his ear. “I have to find a way inside. I have to get to Christine. She needs me.”

“John, I _am_ Christine. And I do need you, but not inside Chaos. I’m not there anymore.”

“I’m coming for you,” he said firmly. “I’ll find a way.”

There was muttering at the other end of the phone. The man and the woman. He had known the man’s name a minute ago. John shook his head, hard. It didn’t clear; it just got fuzzier.

“Mr. Reese,” the man said firmly. _Finch. That was Finch. Only not really. ‘You can call me Mr. Finch’. He hadn’t lied. He hadn’t said that was his name. Just what I could call him. Sneaky. I remember._ John tried to wrap his mind around that name, that knowledge, so it couldn’t slip away again. “Do you have your keys with you?”

He shifted his gun to his left hand patted his pocket with his right. Maybe that was why he couldn’t take it off, because he had his keys in it. “I have them.”

“Then I have a way to get you to Miss Fitzgerald. But I need you to listen very closely.”

Reese tucked his gun away, turned away from the flashing lights, and tried very hard to concentrate. “I’m listening.”

“There are tunnels under the café. Christine showed them to you. Remember?”

“Tunnels. Yes.” He pulled his keys out. “The daisy key.” It hung on his key ring on a ring of its own, with a little daisy painted on a tag. “The daisy key lets me in the tunnels.”

“Yes. Good. Now go around the police officers, around the block, and find an entrance to the tunnels that isn’t guarded. Can you do that?”

John turned and peered around the corner again. He knew this neighborhood. Knew where the entrances were. _Yes._ “Easy.”

“Then do that,” Finch ordered calmly. “Get yourself into the tunnels and wait for us there.”

“I have to get to Christine,” John argued.

“She will meet you there. Remember there’s an entrance from the basement at Chaos. She can get into the tunnels safely and meet you.” There was a bit more muttering. “On the old dance floor, near the stage. She’ll meet you there. Alright?”

John put his keys away. “Right. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“So will we. Just keep your phone on …”

Reese clicked his phone off and moved into the shadows.

 ***

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

“He’s clearly injured,” Finch said. He grabbed Christine’s hand and hurried back toward his car.

“He’s high,” she countered.

“A head injury, perhaps.”

Christine shook her head impatiently. “Do you have a first aid kit in the car?”

“Of course.”

She got into the passenger seat.

Finch considered, for the briefest instant, insisting that she stay behind. But that wasn’t an option. “Where’s the closest entrance?”

“You want the entrance closest to the dance floor. Turn left here.”

He did. “Until we know what’s happening, I need you to stay in the car.”

Surprisingly, she didn’t argue. But she did dig into the glove box and get earpieces for both of them. “One more block, then park in front of that blue awning.”

Finch parked, got out, and handed her the car keys with her. “If you could …”

“I’ll call Joss, tell her we’ve been detained.” She popped the trunk, got out the tackle box that held the first aid supplies, and opened it. “Go.”

Harold looked at her in the golden light of the streetlamp. She had a little color back in her cheeks. Her eyes were clear and focused. Her own misery had been set aside in the face of more urgent problems. It was temporary, of course, but here and now, when he needed her, she was completely on-task. He blew out a little huff of relief. “We’ll be back soon.”

“Be careful.”

Finch hurried down the stairs to the hidden entrance. Her words echoed. The tunnels weren’t especially dangerous – the homeless men who stayed there policed their space stringently and they knew him, at least well enough to know he was there with Christine’s blessing. But whoever had hurt or drugged John might well be still pursuing him. John was extraordinarily careful when he was clear-headed. But as he sounded on the phone, he might have been followed.

Harold needed to get John and get him out of there.

 ***

Fusco figured he was ten or fifteen minute ahead of his partner, minimum.

He could hear the music blasting in the gym before he opened his car door. It was louder as he approached the building. The front doors of the school were unlocked; a bored off-duty cop in uniform stood watch. Fusco flashed his badge and moved toward the ear-splitting techno crap.

The double doors to the gym were propped open. A pretty young girl in short-shirts and a halter top stood right in the doorway. She bounced from foot to foot in anxiety, ignoring the music and flashing lights inside the gym. Across from her, an adult chaperone stood with her arms crossed.

The chaperone was wearing earplugs.

Taylor was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall just inside. He was wearing jeans and a black Chaos t-shirt. Evidently they’d all already changed out of their formal clothes.

Fusco flashed his badge at the chaperone. She frowned, then came out in the hallway and took out one of her earplugs. “What?” she shouted.

He gestured to the young man inside. “I’m Carter’s partner. She said her son was sick, asked me to come get him.”

The chaperone smirked. “Sick, huh?”

“Think he ate something he’s allergic to,” Fusco offered.

She shook her head. “Well, he doesn’t act drunk, anyhow. Probably drugs.”

Lionel shrugged. “His mom’s a homicide detective. I’m sure she’ll sort it out.”

“Let me see the badge again.”

He gave it to her. She looked at it, then went back into the gym and showed it to Taylor. He struggled to his feet. Tia picked up a duffle bag and carried it out behind him.

“Detective,” Taylor said uncertainly.

“You know this guy?” the woman shouted over the music.

“Yeah. He’s my mom’s partner.”

“She’s on her way,” Fusco told the boy. “But I was closer. C’mon, I’ll take you home.”

“’kay.”

Lionel took the duffle bag from the girl. It was very heavy. “You got a way home, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, my dad’s picking us up in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Taylor muttered. “I’m really sorry, Tia. I don’t know … I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“It’s okay. Just feel better.”

“Try.”

“Call me?”

She leaned in and gave him a little hug, but Fusco noticed she didn’t try to kiss him.

“Anybody else acting sick?”

The chaperone rolled her eyes. “Got a dozen or so puking up cheap whiskey in the bathroom, why?”

“Anything else?”

“Anyone else _allergic_ to something?” she asked sardonically. “Not that I’ve noticed.”

Fusco nodded. Taylor swayed a little, and he grabbed him by the upper arm. “You see anybody acting weird, be sure to let your off-duty know, okay?”

“Sure.” She was already looking back into the gym.

“Let’s go, kid.” Fusco hitched the duffle strap higher on one shoulder and led the young man out with his other hand. At the front door, he stopped and talked to the off-duty. “Keep an eye on things,” he said. “Anybody acts like they’re stoned, aggressive, whatever, call for back-up right away.”

“I dealt with stoners before,” the cop groused.

“Maybe so, but there’s something wicked on the streets tonight. Just keep your head up.”

“Yeah, will do.”

Fusco led Taylor out to the parking lot.

The fresh air seemed to perk the boy up a little. Lionel had deliberately parked at the edge of the lot, out of the direct sight-line of the door. He took the boy around the car and leaned him against the hood. “Look,” he said, “we got about five minutes before your mom gets here. I’m not saying I can smooth things over with her, but maybe I can help. But you need to tell me what you’re on, right now.”

“I’m not,” Taylor said. He shook his head, and the motion clearly made him dizzy; he started to slump off to his left.

Fusco caught him and straightened him up. “You gonna look me in the eye and tell me you’re not high right now?” he asked. He grabbed the boy’s chin and looked at his pupils. They were huge.

The boy’s skin was hot to the touch.

Lionel felt sick.

“I ssssswear,” Taylor said. “My mom’s a cop. Even if I wanted to … I know I’d get … I know I’d get … busted.”

“So you weren’t drinking at the prom?”

“No.” He shook his head again, and almost fell down again. “No.”

“Or in the limo on the way here?”

“Just my … just my Coke.”

“Coke?”

“Coke. Just the …” he gestured towards his duffle. “I didn’t finish it yet.”

Fusco hefted the bag onto the hood of the car. He kept one hand on Taylor’s chest to steady him, used the other to unzip the bag. There were two twenty-ounce Coke bottles stuffed into in, on top of what looked like a tuxedo. One was half-empty; the other was unopened.

He opened the half-empty bottle and sniffed it. It didn’t smell like alcohol. Neither did Taylor’s breath, for that matter. But the kid was clearly messed up on something. “Anybody mess with this? At the prom, or in the car?”

“I left it …” Taylor looked up at the overhead light for a long moment.

“You left it where?” Fusco snapped.

“Oh.” The boy’s eyes drifted back down, but they didn’t really focus on his face. “I left the bag in the limo. We all did. And then … no. I opened it in the car. Drank it, put it away. I brought …” He drifted off again, then struggled to focus. “I brought one for Tia, too, but she didn’t want it yet. Didn’t want to spill it on her dress.”

Fusco considered, then took a sip of the soda. It tasted okay. He took a longer drink, then turned his head and spit it out. “This tastes like shit. What the hell’s in this?”

“Perk,” Taylor said vaguely.

“What?”

The boy gestured toward the bag again. “Perk. Energy drink. I poured it in. Help me stay awake. Tastes awful by itself.”

Fusco re-capped the soda and dug around for the energy drink. He found one empty bottle and one full one. “Was this sealed when you got it? When you poured it in?”

Taylor nodded. This time his knees seemed to buckle and he sank towards the ground. “No, no,” Fusco said quickly. He held the young man up by pressing him against the car and dropped the bottle back into the bag. Then he ran one hand up and laid it on the side of Taylor’s neck.

The boy was definitely hot, maybe feverish. But his pulse was steady. “You havin’ any trouble breathing?” he asked.

“No. Yeah, a little. Like I got a cold or something.”

Maybe, Fusco thought hopefully, the kid was coming down with the flu. Spiking a temp, overheated in the gym, just plain sick.

Maybe he really had eaten something that didn’t agree with him.

He could play it safe and call for a bus. But the boy didn’t really seem that sick. And Fusco knew from the radio calls he’d heard that the emergency rooms were jammed.

He could wait for Carter. But if someone had slipped something into the kid’s Coke somehow …

… he’d only drunk half of it …

“You’re not going to like me very much right now,” Fusco said. “But maybe you won’t remember.”

“Remember …?” Taylor asked.

Fusco didn’t give him any chance to resist. He shifted his grip so his forearm was around the boy’s neck and bent him over from the waist. When Taylor opened his mouth to protest, Lionel jammed his fingers in, hard, against the back of the boy’s throat. He pulled his hand back just ahead of the stream of puke that came out.

Once Taylor had started to vomit, he kept going on his own. Fusco held him, trying to keep him from vomiting on own shoes or from falling down. A lot came up. None of it smelled like liquor.   

Fusco would have been happier if it had.

 ***

There were people here, John knew. He could hear them, smell them. Men like him, unwashed and unwanted. Just the flotsam of the city. No one important. No one who was a threat to him.

Among the homeless, he was the apex predator.

He moved through the shadows. He tried to be silent and to move steadily. That was the best way to avoid detection. But his feet were clumsy and his balance was wrong. He wasn’t as quiet as he wanted to be. As he thought he could be.

He had really big feet, he thought.

Still, there were lots of shadows and corners here. More cover than light. He felt safer.

He skirted the other men and moved up onto the stage. The dance floor was directly below him, just a three-foot drop. He was careful not to touch the tattered curtain. It was dark with water stains and mildew; if he got that smell on him, it would never wash off.

He waited.

It was hard to keep his eyes open. Hard to keep his balance. He planted his feet a little further apart. Swayed between them like he was on the deck of a ship on the open ocean. He’d been going to buy a boat once. A long time ago, it seemed like. Buy a boat, take Jessica, walk away from everything but the sea and the sky. At least for a while. For a while.

And then they’d find a safe harbor somewhere, a quiet place with wide lawns and good schools, and they’d raise their boys there. Boys, because he knew what to do with boys. Although he supposed Jess would know what to do with girls, too. Either way. Houseful of loud, healthy, happy kids. A yard full of grass, and the boys arguing every Saturday morning whose turn it was to mow. Maybe a little dock on the ocean, where they could tie up the boat and slip away every now and then …

John closed his eyes. His face was damp with salt spray. He brushed his tongue across his lips and tasted the brine. Him and Jessica on a boat …

Footsteps on the dance floor, uneven. Halting. Trying to be quiet. But John heard. John heard. His eyes flashed open, focused. The shadows were his home, his family, and he heard everything. _Try to sneak up on me in my place? I am the Darkness, you fool. Kara said so, and she would know. She’s the Darkness too_.

He knew those footsteps. He remembered. He’d met him in a park. Walked beside him in the city. Crazy man with a crazy story. Stalking a slender woman. Big bodyguards, two of them. The woman hadn’t stood a chance. Crazy man. John had walked away. The man had followed him. Drugged him.

_That was the man who had drugged him._

John Reese moved. His feet were steadier this time, quieter. He was a black cat in blacker shadows. The man who had drugged him would not get away.

 ***

Nicholas Donnelly stared at the screen.

It said:

PERK PERK PERK PERK PERK PERK PERK PERK PERK  

It said the exact same thing, in tiny print, the entire width and height of the screen.

“I don’t know what this means,” he said aloud.

The screen scrolled, but only revealed the same word for a hundred more lines.

Donnelly ran his hand over his face. Then he turned and shouted, “Director! What the hell is Perk?”

 ***

“Fusco?” Carter hurried toward her partner’s sedan.

“Over here,” Fusco called.

He was standing at the very edge of the parking lot, looking down the little grassy bank with his hands on his hips. She joined him. Taylor was crawling up the bank on his hands and knees. “What the hell?”

“He’s okay,” her partner answered quietly. “Just watch.”

Taylor reached the little curb that surrounded the parking lot and looked up at her. He smiled broadly. “Hi, Mom. Watch me!”

He stretched out on his stomach next to the curb, reached his arms straight over his head, and rolled sideways all the way down the little hill. There was a little drainage culvert at the bottom, but it was dry. The boy sat up on his knees, jubilant. “Did you see me?”

In the dim light from the parking lot, she could see dark splotches on his knees and elbows. She was relieved that they were apparently grass stains. “I saw you, Baby. Why don’t you come on up here?”

“Okay.” He put his hands down and started crawling up again. Joss could see the sweat beading on his forehead.

“That’s his ninth trip,” Fusco reported quietly. He shrugged. “It seems to make him happy.”

“He’s stoned,” Carter said icily.

“Yeah, he is.”

“Where’d he get the drugs?”

“He says he didn’t. So does the girlfriend. I believe ‘em.”

Carter looked at him sharply.

“Look, I know he’s a teenager, maybe he’s going to experiment a little. But he’s a cop’s kid, too. He had to know that _this_ ,” he gestured toward the school, “was the worst possible place to try something new. He knew he’d get caught.”

Taylor reached the top of the hill. “Can I go again?” he asked eagerly.

“Go ahead,” Carter answered.

The detective was suddenly aware that she was breathing much easier. Her son might still be in danger – Finch’s Machine said he was – but he was right here, in front of her, where she could protect him. And _let_ anyone try to get to him now. Taylor was safe.

Stoned, but safe.

The boy laughed out loud all the way down the hill. It would have been a wonderful laugh if he’d been five or six. But he was eighteen, and it was creepy.

“Taylor said he just had the soda he brought with him. That he left it in the limo while they were at the prom. What do you know about the driver?”

“Scotty hired him,” Joss answered, “and he works for Finch regularly. He checks out.”

Fusco shook his head. “Then I don’t know. He says it was sealed when he opened it. Same for the energy drink.”

“Energy drink.”

“He dumped it in. Says it tastes like shit otherwise.”

Taylor came back and sat on the curb at their feet. “I’m dizzy,” he announced.

“Just rest a minute, then,” his mother told him.

“I think I might throw up again.”

“Well, do it in the grass, then.” She looked at Fusco. “Again?”

“Yeah, I encouraged him to offload,” Lionel said unapologetically. “It seemed to help. He said he only drank half of the Coke, anyhow.” He gestured toward the duffle bag on the hood of his car. It was unzipped, messily stuffed. “I went through his bag, didn’t find anything but another Coke and a Perk.”

“Perk.”

“The energy drink. Never heard of that brand. I was thinking maybe he’s allergic to something in it.”

Taylor evidently decided he wasn’t going to vomit. He stretched out and rolled down the hill again.

“But?”

Fusco looked away for a minute. “Can I be straight with you, Carter? The way he’s acting, the way his skin’s so hot? He reminds me of the guy at Chaos. Junior version.”

“Like … he only got half a dose?”

“Exactly.”

“We should call a bus …”

“Maybe,” Fusco agreed. “But like I said, he only got half a dose and I got most of that back. Emergency rooms are jammed. If it was me … well, never mind. I’ll call for you, if you want.”

“You’d take him home and sit on him,” Carter guessed.

“He’s breathing okay, his pulse is steady. He doesn’t seem to be in pain, or agitated. He’s just … trippin’. Now if he gets worse, of course I’d take him in. But right now?” Lionel shrugged. “Like I said, though, he’s your kid. You make the call.”

Joss thought about it. Taylor laughed. “Taking him in would scare him to death,” she admitted. It was disturbing as hell to see her son drugged out of his mind – but she’d sat with people on a lot worse trips. Take him home, clean him up, put him to bed, stay close …

Her phone rang. She glanced at it. Dispatch. She shut it off and put it away.

Perk.  What the hell was it about Perk?

Carter turned and started pulling things out of the duffle bag.

“I told you I looked,” Fusco protested mildly.

She came up with the unopened energy drink. Perk was in a small bottle, brightly colored. She’d never heard of it, either. It looked a lot like the 5-Hour bottle. Clearly a knock-off. Taylor said he’d been given free samples. And coupons. “Coupons.”

“What?”

“The guy at Chaos had a coupon. And so did the DB I just caught.”

“What was he dead of?” Fusco asked.

“She. Waitress with a husband and a toddler waiting at home. Ran into the street and then charged at a taxi head-on. Broke her own neck.”

“Holy shit.”

“She had a coupon. And another bottle of this.”

“Shit! It’s the energy drink.”

Carter felt sick. “It could be all over the city.”

Fusco looked toward the school. “It could be all over that _prom_.”

“Go,” Carter said. “I’ll call it in.”

Her partner hurried off across the parking lot.

Taylor looked up from the curb. “Mama? Can we go to the petting zoo?”

“What petting zoo, Baby?”

He gestured toward the side door of the school. “That one there.”

Against her will, Carter turned her head and looked. “I think they’re closed now, Taylor. But we can come back tomorrow if you want.”

“Okay. I’m tired, Mama.”

“Let me make a phone call and then I’ll take you home, okay?”

“Okay. Can I have the rest of my Coke?”

“No. Not right now.”

“I think it made me puke anyhow.”

“I think so, too.” She eyed her son. His chin dropped against his chest and his eyes drifted shut. He lurched forward, about to fall down the little hill. She grabbed his shoulder. “Taylor, why don’t you wait in the car until I’m done here?”

“Okay.”

She helped him up. He headed for the back door, and she helped let him climb in. She set the child locks, which doubled as perp locks, and shut the door. Then she grabbed her phone. While she waited to be connected to the captain, she looked around for a security camera. There were several, of course. She glared at the nearest one. Finch and his damned Machine. Why hadn’t it warned her sooner? Why hadn’t it warned the whole city?

But on the other hand – Taylor was safe. Taylor was safe now, because the Machine had tipped them off, because they’d gotten to him before he drank the whole soda, and Fusco had made him throw up before too much absorbed into his system.

She didn’t know if Perk was actually deadly on its own, or if it simply made people behave in dangerous ways which might get them killed. Either way, Taylor was dozing safely in her car. He’d dodged the danger. Unless there was something more.

Of course, there was no way to know.

“I’m not sure I like you,” she muttered to the camera. Then the captain was on the line and she was trying to convince him.

 ***

Christine Fitzgerald took Harold’s laptop out of his shoulder bag and put it on the floor of the car. She loaded the bag with the most likely items from the first aid kit, then put the kit itself, still open, on the seat.

A phone rang.

She turned and looked around. There, two doors down, an ancient pay phone hung on the wall. It kept ringing, loud on the silent street. 

Christine listened intently to her earpiece. Only quiet, uneven footsteps, slow. Harold hadn’t found John yet. She couldn’t call him back.

“Okay, sweetie,” she said softly. She trotted over and picked up the phone. “Hello?” she said, soft and a bit reverent.

“P – p – p,” an electronic voice sputtered.

“Harold’s not here. You know that. Talk to me.”

“P …” The phone clicked off.

“Damn it.” Christine put the received back on the hook. She looked up at the nearest camera, but it simply regarded her with an unblinking red light.

“Fine,” she told it. “Be that way.”

She walked back to the car.

The pay phone began to ring again.

 ***

Harold limped across the dank, empty space that had once been the best-concealed speakeasy in the city. He knew, intellectually, that he hadn’t been in the damp air long enough for it to cause his injured joints to ache. But they _did_ ache. Stress, he supposed.

“Mr. Reese?” he called softly.

His penlight illuminated only a step or two in front of him.

The others here would not bother him, he reminded himself firmly. Christine was their benefactress, their Lady of the Shadows, and they all knew that he was there at her sufferance.

His right foot hit the relatively smooth surface of the dance floor. The sound of his footfalls changed markedly. He turned north, toward where he knew the stage was. “Mr. Reese?”

When he could see the front of the stage in his tiny light circle, he paused and flashed it around. “John?” he called.

Behind him, very close, very low, a voice growled, “You let her die.”

Finch spun, but it was too late. The arm caught him like an iron bar across his upper chest and swept him backward. “John!” he managed to gasp. Then his back slammed against the pillar at the side of the stage.

The impact knocked the air out of his lungs. He would have collapsed, but the arm kept him pinned there harshly. The light was gone, dropped in the attack, but Reese was only inches from him and he could see the fury on the man’s face despite the dim light. “You let her die!” Reese roared this time.

It was like the first time, Finch thought, in the hotel room. But it was more horrifying now because he knew his friend had no idea who Harold was – or who _he_ was now, either. There was only madness in his eyes. “Mr. Reese, please …”

The arm released. Finch sagged, and when he lifted his head John had vanished into the darkness. “John …”

The fist shot out with no warning. It caught Finch square on the left side of his jaw, snapped his head around and knocked him to the ground. The pins that held his neck in place did not allow any flex, and his face and entire spine caught the full impact of the blow. Stars and darkness competed in his vision. It hurt beyond words. Hitting the ground was a secondary pain. His hip flared in protest, but he barely noticed. His vision narrowed to a tunnel.

If he blacked out now, John would likely beat him to death in his blind fury.

“John …” he said desperately.

It came out as a whisper. There was no air in his lungs.

Reese grabbed him by the front of his jacket and hauled him to his feet. “You could have saved her. You let her die.”

“I _tried_ , John. I did my best!”

One hand released him. Harold flinched, bracing uselessly for the next blow.

Another voice said, “John?”

She was not in his earpiece. She was in the tunnels with them. In the dark.

Reese’s hand stopped in mid-air. He blinked, confused.

“John, where are you?” the woman called softly. She sounded  worried. Helpless.

Reese lowered his hand and looked around wildly. “Jess? Jessica?”

“I’m scared, John,” she called back. “Can you come and get me?”

The fist on the front of Harold’s jacket loosened. Reese stared at him, his eyes wide and wild. “She’s alive.”

“John …” Harold shook his head.

“You are _so lucky_ she’s alive,” Reese growled. He released Finch and stalked off in the direction of the voice.

Harold straightened slowly. Tears pricked at his eyes from the sheer pain, and his breath came in short, quick gasps. The darkness receded, but sparkles still danced around the edges of his vision. He touched his jaw gingerly. It wasn’t broken, he didn’t think, but it was already tender and certain to bruise. He traced his hand around to the back of his neck. It felt like all the pins and vertebrae were still in place, but everything was badly jarred.

It hurt. It would hurt for several days, at least.

He was lucky to be alive, and he knew it.

Carefully, he followed the direction Mr. Reese had gone in pursuit of his imaginary lover. 

 ***

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Just across the street from Chaos, a slender red-head watched as the police filed away from the café. She waited while the big guy locked the door behind the last one. The lights inside went out. Then nothing.

She stepped out onto the sidewalk, crossed her arms, and looked up at the nearest camera. “This should be easy for you,” she said. “I know you’re not feeling well, but I made it easy. I gave you bar codes. Why aren’t you catching it? Why aren’t you calling your father?”

The red light on the camera stayed on steadily.

Nothing else happened.

The red-head frowned and settled onto the steps of an old post office to wait.

 ***

It was dark and it smelled bad and John felt sick and heavy-headed. He didn’t want her to be here. He didn’t know why she was here. But she _was here_. If he could just find her … “Jess?” he called, loud and clear. He didn’t care if Kara heard him. Let her try to take Jess away from him again.

He closed his fist. It ached. He wondered what he’d hit.

“John?”

There. Just a few steps ahead, to the right. His heart jumped in his chest. “I’m here, Jess.” He nearly choked on his own words, on the lump in his throat. “I told you to wait for me. What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.”

He covered the last darkness between them and then she was there. It was impossible, but she was _there_. His sickness vanished with his doubt. “Jessica!” He wrapped his arms around her, crushed her against his chest. He felt her arms around his back, holding him just as tightly. “Oh, God, Jess, I thought you were dead!”

Joy bubbled up in him, wave after wave of absolute bliss. It felt unreal, somehow. It felt like he was drowning in it. Dizzy and a little nauseous. Too much happy; his body didn’t know what to do with it. Tears rolled down his face. He didn’t care. He clung to Jessica’s strong, slender body.

Her hand came up and touched the back of his neck. Her fingers were wonderfully cool. “Oh, John, you’re so hot.”

He chuckled against her hair. “Why, thank you. You’re pretty hot yourself.”

“I think you’re sick, sweetie.”

Yes, right. He remembered that he didn’t feel well. But it didn’t matter. Jessica was _here_. It was impossible, but it was true. She was _here_. “It’s nothing.”

“You should sit down, John. I’ll find you some water.”

She tried to pull away, but he held her tightly. “It doesn’t matter,” he protested. “Nothing matters. You’re here. I thought I lost you, but you’re here. I told you I’d come for you.”

He leaned down and kissed her.

She didn’t respond at first. He felt like he was rushing things. Which was foolish, because they’d already been lovers. But they had been apart for a long time, she’d been married to someone else and … he didn’t stop. She was here, safe, alive, with him. He _had_ to kiss her. After a moment her lips relaxed into the kiss. It was still different than it had been before. She had always matched the passion in his kisses. Now she seemed passive. Not the same. But how could it be? After so much time, and all they’d each been through …

He couldn’t understand how Jessica could be here. He’d been so certain she was dead. Everyone was certain she was dead. Even her husband …

“I don’t care,” he vowed against her lips, and then he kissed her again.

“John,” she murmured. “Shhhh.”

He lifted his head, but did not loosen his arms. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe.”

“I think we’re okay. What happened to you?”

“I killed your husband,” he answered honestly. “I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t sure I was going to. But he picked up a poker. So I killed him.”

He wondered if he shouldn’t have said that. She might be horrified. It might drive her away. Normal people were repulsed by murder … but he couldn’t bear to lie to her. Not now.

And anyhow, she didn’t pull away. “Oh, sweetie,” she murmured.

John suddenly felt heavy. He staggered against her slender body. “I’m … I’m …”

“Let’s sit you down before you fall down.”

“Yeah. Okay.” He left her help ease him down to the floor, but he wouldn’t let go of her hand. “I don’t know … I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Just let me rest a minute and then I’ll get you out of here.”

“We’re safe here, John. Rest as long as you need to.”

“Not a place for you.” He rested his back against the front of the stage and drew her close to his side. “Stay with me, Jess. Please stay.” Suddenly he was filled with a sadness as deep and rich as his joy had been a moment earlier. Tears filled his eyes again, this time of grief. “I couldn’t stand it if I lost you again.”

“I’m right here,” she whispered. “I’m not going to leave you. Just rest.”

He slumped against her shoulder, unable to keep his eyes open. Exhaustion lapped at his mind like the tide. “Love you, Jessie.”

“I love you, John.”

He felt her lips against his temple, wonderfully cool and soft. Then he sank under the tide.

 ***

There was a free concession stand set up for the dance, but it wasn’t open yet. Someone had dropped off two flats of Perk to the after-prom. Fusco flashed his badge at the chaperone-mom in charge and asked who’d brought it. She didn’t know. He grabbed the two cases; there were four bottles missing.

“I’m going to take this out and lock it up in my car,” he announced. “No one can drink it, understand? No one. And we need to track down those four missing bottles.”

“Why?” she demanded suspiciously. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s a bad batch,” he explained. Then, quickly, he added, “Contaminated. Food poisoning. Gives you the, uh, runs. In a big way.”

“Oh.” She believed him completely. “I always worry about those knock-off brands. But it’s all sealed and all.”

“I guess the whole stock is bad,” he said. “We need to get it off the street right away.”

“They send detectives to do food recalls?”

He shook his head. “My partner’s boy was here. That’s why we’re here.”

“Oh.” She looked around. “Well, it has to be the adults that have the missing ones. I’ll ask around.”

“Hurry, please,” Fusco said. “And if they’ve already drunk it, we need to get them to the hospital right away.”

“For food poisoning?”

“I guess the, uh, dehydration factor is high. They need to give you IVs or something. Something about liver damage. Or maybe kidneys, I don’t remember. They just told me to round the stuff up. Anyhow, it’s important.”

“Okay.”

Fusco picked up the flats and hurried out the side door.

***

Carter was pacing and talking on her cell phone, clearly furious, when Fusco came out with the last of the little drink bottles. He looked towards her car; Taylor was curled up on the back seat, apparently asleep. He waited until she snapped the phone shut and clearly thought about throwing it. “What?”

“They’re going to have it _tested_ ,” she snarled. “ _Tested_! Not pulled off the shelves, not … tested. That could take all night. Or longer.”

“Call Moss.”

Carter looked at him.

Fusco shrugged. “Call Moss. He’ll listen. And then call Glasses.”

She shook her head. “He said he was coming, but then Christine called back and said John needed their help.”

“With what?”

“One of these, I imagine.” Joss gestured toward her car.

“Probably. Well, leave him a message and fill him in anyhow. Then take your boy and go home.”

Carter shook her head again. “My phone’s been blowing up with new cases. I can’t go home.”

“Taylor needs you.”

She looked toward the car, obviously torn. “You’re right. I just … damn it.”

“Carter, I got this,” Lionel said firmly.

“You’re on suspension.”

“My gun wasn’t fired, remember? I’m on desk duty, not suspended. I already called I.A., and in light of the manpower shortage tonight, I’m cleared to work cases as long as I’m with you.”

“And how’s that work if I go home with Taylor?”

One of the things Fusco liked best about his partner was the way she followed the rules – when she could. She hadn’t walked on the wild side enough to know all the games, but this one was an old one, simple clock-padding. “You get a call, you call me with it. I go investigate. Anyone asks me where you are, you’re either on your way and caught in traffic or you just left to start the next case. But I’m thinkin’ no one’s going to ask. Not tonight.”

Carter shook her head, about to argue. Then Taylor shouted, “Look, a hippo!” in his sleep. She threw her hands up. “You get jammed up … my mom can come stay with him …”

“Once you get him settled,” he answered. They both knew he meant, _once you’re sure he’s done tripping_. “But seriously, no one will notice.”

“They won’t miss me?” Carter teased gratefully. “You know we’ll both get fired if we get caught.”

“Fired? Nahhh. We’ll probably get thrown in jail.”

“I appreciate this, Fusco.”

“Yeah, well, you won’t appreciate it tomorrow when I make you write all the reports, but we’ll talk about that then. Oh, and bring good coffee.”

“You got it, Lionel.” As if on cue, her phone rang. She took down the information on a little notepad, tore it off and handed it to him. “You be careful out there.”

He nodded grimly. “Talk to you later.”

 ***

In the Den, the operators listened to the call live. The NYPD detective had called Special Agent Brian Moss directly, woken him up, and told him in no uncertain terms that the city was under attack.

Specifically, Homicide Detective Jocelyn Carter told the agent that the city had been blanketed with bottles of the energy drink Perk, which contained a mixture of highly concentrated, mind-altering drugs.

“That’s it,” Poole said. “That’s what the Source was trying to tell us.”

While Moss was still on the phone with Carter, Donnelly routed a text through the back communication channels to the agent.

                PERK THREAT CONFIRMED. TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION .

Moss paused in mid-conversation to check his message, and when he returned to the call he was significantly more invested. He got the rest of the sparse information she had. “Thank you, Detective.” He disconnected that call and then immediate called his office to reactivate his cyber command center.

“Let’s get this stuff tracked down,” the director said. “Help ‘em out, people. Go, go.”

Donnelly moved back to his own office, where it was somewhat quieter.

His screen immediately filled with numbers.

Earlier Asena had flooded his monitor with the single word: _Perk_. Now it gave him an unbroken sheet of numbers. At a glance they were non-repeating. They were very likely identifiers. But there was no break between them. Just a long continuous string.

_A thousand victims?_ Donnelly thought frantically. _More? Actual victims, already drugged? Or just potential ones?_ His mouth went dry. He didn’t know where to begin.

“I know you’re doing your best,” he whispered to the computer. “Just try to keep it together for a little bit longer, okay?”

The light in the corner flickered wildly again. There was no other answer.

 ***

Finch approached slowly, both out of caution and because he honestly couldn’t move any faster. The sharpest pain in his neck had subsided, but a wider, constant pain had replaced it. At least he’d been able to recover his penlight; they were in deep shadow. “Christine?”

“I’m here,” she answered softly. “It’s okay. He’s out.”

He moved closer. Reese was sitting up with his back to the stage. He wasn’t sleeping; his eyelids fluttered and he jerked occasionally. His breathing sounded labored. Christine was beside him, tangled in his arms and legs and apparently unconcerned about that. Harold’s computer bag was beside her, but he could tell it was mostly empty. “Can I borrow that?” she said, gesturing to the light.

Finch handed it to her. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

“Not yet.” She rolled Reese’s head forward and examined the back of his neck. He did not appear to notice her casual manipulation of his body. “Here. Burn marks.”

Harold moved hesitantly closer. “Taser,” he said. He looked closer – bending from the waist because his neck would not allow even the slightest tilt of his head now – and pointed. “And there. He was injected with something.”

He’d known that, of course. Known it would be something like that. When Reese had attacked him, he’d known the man had to be out of his mind. Because Reese would _never_ … but it was comforting to have physical confirmation.

“I would guess the same thing as Dominic.”

“Dom … oh.” The man from Chaos. The man she’d killed a few hours before. “Ambulance,” he repeated, turning.

“Random, wait.” She wriggled out of Reese’s loose grasp and clambered to her feet. John protested, then put head back and was still. “You need to think this through. If they take him to a hospital like this, out of his mind and combative, how’s that going to work?”

“I can’t worry about Mr. Reese telling our secrets when his life may be at stake,” Finch protested.

“That’s not what I’m talking about – although that is an issue, too. They’ll either put him in restraints or flat-back him. Drug him unconscious.”

“I suppose so.”

“John, in restraints, when he’s like this? He’ll tear himself apart trying to get loose.”

Finch had a flash of horrid memory, of Reese’s wrists torn raw from where he’d tried to escape Elias’ handcuffs to save Baby Leila. In full restraints, the man might rip his shoulders from their sockets, dislocate his ankles … “Sedation, then.”

“You ever had morphine, Random?”

“He won’t become an addict overnight.”

“Not my point. Have you?”

After the surgery on his neck. One of them. He remembered. Sick and floating in agony, the pain rising, hitting the button. The wash of relief, but then the nightmares, the sense of being immobile, struggling to breathe, unable to escape, to scream, to wake himself from the fog of the drug …

And Reese, in his current condition, had far worse memories to torment him.

John opened his eyes and looked at them, as if his mind was suddenly perfectly clear. Then he grinned like a child, flopped over on his side, and began to snore.

“Then what do you suggest?” Finch asked desperately. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“Yes, you can. Leave him here with me.”

“What?”

“I’ll take his key so he can’t get to the street. I’ll stay with him, be his tour guide, get him through this trip. Let him run and hide and whatever he needs to do. I can get him through this.”

“He tried to kill me!” Finch protested. “He could easily do the same to you.”

“He won’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

“He won’t because I’m no danger to him, and I never have been. His lizard brain knows that. He may think I’m someone else, but he knows at his core I’m no threat.”

“And I am?”

Christine cocked her head. “You’re the most dangerous man he’s ever met.”

He sought desperately for some rebuttal to that, but there was none. She was right. John Reese trusted Harold with his life. But that trust was a conscious choice, a decision to override his own instincts. In his current condition …. “I’m not leaving you alone with him,” he insisted.

“There’s a pay phone up there,” she said. “By where you parked. It keeps ringing. I answered it, but she won’t talk to me. Or she can’t.”

Finch shook his head. “I can’t. John’s safety, and yours, are my priority. The Numbers will have to wait.”

Reese giggled without opening his eyes. “When your number’s up, your number’s up,” he murmured playfully. His whole body twitched and then he went still again.

“You can’t help him,” Christine insisted. “I can. I know what to do. I can get him through this, without letting him hurt himself or anyone else.”

“How? You don’t even know what drugs he was given. How can you possibly know what to do?”

“I’ve done it before, Harold.”

His argument froze on his lips. She had. Of course she had. Her father had been an undiagnosed, untreated paranoid-schizophrenic who had used every drug he could lay his hands on to treat his own symptoms. His young daughter had helped him, guided him, protected him, right up until his death.

Tommy Fitzgerald had died of a gunshot wound in front of what was now the Chaos café. His daughter had shot a man dead there just a few hours earlier, to save the life of the police officer who had killed her father. And now she was stepping up to help their friend through the same nightmarish drug delusion that she’d so often helped Tommy through …

Harold could tell by the look on her face that she hadn’t thought through the implications. She was focused on the moment. But he was always one to see the big picture. Christine could help John here and now. But it would cost her dearly. She had shoved all her own emotions into a box and locked them away. She could keep them suppressed until the crisis passed. But they would come out, inevitably, when the smoke cleared. The damage might be more than any of them could bear to behold.

Reese laughed again without opening his eyes. Finch brought his hand up to the back of his neck. Another blow like that might well kill him. And how would John cope with _that_ realization, when he was himself again?

John’s breathing was suddenly labored.

Christine turned her head, peered into the darkness. “Pony? It’s okay.”

The elderly homeless man stepped into the small patch of dim with them. “He’s flyin’, huh?”

“He was drugged,” Christine confirmed. “I’m going to keep him down here, let him run it out. I need you to clear everybody out.”

“The streets are crazy,” the man protested.

“I have a place you can go,” Finch said quickly. He got out one of his business cards and printed on the back of it. “It’s an apartment, just a few blocks away. Here’s the address and the code for the front lock. There are four bedrooms, and spare linens in the closets. You can help yourself to anything you want.”

Pony looked at him narrowly. “We ain’t gonna loot the place.”

“No, no,” Finch agreed quickly. “I only meant, the pantry is stocked, there won’t be much in the refrigerator, but the pantry’s full, help yourself, use whatever you need, there are toiletries and … as I said, extra blankets … cable, you can watch any movies you want, or … it’s very secure. You’ll be safe there. Until things quiet down outside.”

The man looked down at Reese, then back to Christine. “You sure?”

“Yes. Please.”

He nodded uncertainly. “I’ll round ‘em up.”

“Pony. Do you have an OD kit?”

“Yeah. I’ll get it. Want some water, too?”

“Yes, please.”

The man moved off silently.

Finch tried again. “Christine, I know you want to help, but this isn’t …”

“Harold. I need this.”

“You don’t …”

“I can’t be a pawn on your board any more. I need to know that I’m someone you …”

“Trust? Of course I trust you.”

“ … rely on. That you’ll rely on me when the chips are down.”

“That’s not the issue.”

“John needs me. Me, specifically. With my experience and my skillset. The Machine needs you. You, specifically. You can’t help here and I can’t help there. So you have to go, and I have to stay.”

Harold stared at her. Her logic seemed flawless. But he hated it. _Hated it_. He was terrified by the whole idea. Christine, alone down here, with John crazed out of his mind, no way to reach them, no way to contact them …

He pulled out his phone and glanced at it. As he’d suspected, there was no signal here. “How did you know?” he said. “How did you get here so fast?”

Christine cocked her head. “I was already down here. I was coming to tell you about the pay phone.”

She’d heard Reese attack, and known exactly how to stop him.

She’d had a lot of practice …

Reese groaned. His breathing got louder; he seemed to be struggling suddenly.

Pony came back. He had two bottles of water in one hand and a small red plastic package in the other. “We’re going,” he announced.

Christine grabbed the red package, left the water to Finch. “Thank you, Pony. I owe you.”

“Hey, you two want the place to yourself for the night,” he said, “who am I to judge?” He nodded toward Reese. “Good luck with him.”

“I’ve seen worse.”

“I _been_ worse. But it wasn’t fun getting back.” He nodded to Finch and disappeared again.

Christine sat down next to Reese on the filthy dance floor. “John. Let’s take your jacket off.”

His eyes fluttered open. “Hot.”

“I know you are. Here, sit up, let me help you.”

She helped him back into a sitting position, then slipped his coat off. His gun clattered onto the wooden floor behind him.

Christine picked up the gun and handed it to Finch. He took it delicately, as if it might go off. He knew, logically, that it wouldn’t; Reese was stringently careful about safety matters. Still, he couldn’t make himself tuck the thing into his waistband. Reluctantly, he dropped it into his jacket pocket. “He has a knife, too. At the very least.”

“He can keep that. He’ll freak if we take all his weapons away. I don’t want him improvising on me.”

“Christine …”

She ignored him. “John.” She took his chin in her hand and turned his face towards her. “John, I need you to listen to me.” She set the red package down next to them and opened it with her free hand. “I have some medicine I need to give you. Naloxone. Narcan. You know what that is. It will help you breathe.”

“… can’t breathe …” Reese answered.

“This will help, I promise. But I need to get it in a vein, okay? And it may make you feel pretty sick.”

“Already … sick.”

“I know, sweetie. Just hang in there.” She unbuttoned his cuff and pushed his sleeve up. “Light,” she said.

Harold realized she was talking to him. He recovered the penlight and aimed its beam at Reese’s arm. “Christine …” he began again.

She glanced up. “I need you to hold that for me while I hit him. Then I need you to go.”

“I can’t …”

“You have to, Random.”

Her tone said that the conversation was over. Finch wanted to argue. Wanted to … something. To have some alternative. He always had a back-up plan. He always …

John needed her. Her experience and her skillset, as she’d said.

Not Finch. There was nothing Finch could do, and his presence just made the situation more dangerous for all of them.

_You trust the woman. But will you rely on her? When, as she said, all the chips are down?_

_Or is she just a pawn on your board after all?_

“You were never just a pawn,” he protested quietly. “Never.”

She glanced at him. Then she turned her attention back to John. She slipped a rubber strap around his upper arm and tightened it.

Reese woke up enough to try to push her away.

“John. John. Listen to me. It’s Narcan. I need to get it into a vein. It will help you breathe. Remember?”

He quieted a little.

Christine twisted around until she was sitting on Reese’s lap, with her back against his chest. It effectively pinned him, at least momentarily, without being threatening. Then she took his free hand and brought it to her throat, fingers on one side and thumb on the other. “Keep this right here,” she said. “I won’t hurt you, and I know you won’t hurt me.”

Sheer terror ran through Finch. It would be nothing, nothing for Reese to simply close his hand and snap her neck. _Nothing._ And when the smoke cleared … “Don’t,” he managed to whisper.

The woman ignored him.

Reese’s hand tightened around her throat, but just until it was snug, not cutting off her air. Yet.   

Christine tapped the inside of his other elbow. “Beautiful,” she murmured. She brought an alcohol wipe from the little red kit and swabbed down Reese’s skin. She tossed it aside and reached for a pre-loaded syringe. Harold noted that there were two more inside.

“Can you find a vein?” he worried quietly.

“Are you kidding? He has veins like jungle vines.” She snapped off the cover and stuck the needle smoothly into his arm. Then she snapped the tourniquet off and pressed the plunger.

Harold watched Reese’s hand at his throat. It never tightened. He hadn’t even noticed the needle’s prick.

When the drug was in, Christine replaced the cap and handed the used syringe to Harold. “I’ll deal with that later.” She closed the case. Then she put her hand over John’s and eased it away.

“Burns,” he said.

“I know. I’m sorry.” She reached out to Harold. “Water?”

He handed her one of the bottles. She cracked it open and held it to his lips. John drank thirstily, then pushed it away. “Sick.”

“Yeah, Narcan can make your vomit,” she said. She climbed to her feet and helped him up onto his knees. He dropped immediately to all fours and threw up on the floor between his hands.

Between the bouts of retching, his breathing sounded markedly better.

Christine was unconcerned with the vomiting. She packed the little red kit into Harold’s computer bag, added the other water bottle. She rolled up John’s jacket and put it next to it.

“If he gets out of control …” Harold worried.

“I have a sedative from the first aid kit. I’ll use it if I need to.”

“I won’t be able to hear you …”

“I’ll leave my phone on. You should get signal when we’re close to the walls.”

“But …”

“Go, Random. I’ll call you when he’s ready to come up.”

“And then?”

“Then we’ll take him upstairs and get him cleaned up and put him to bed.” She glanced at Reese. He was pretty much done vomiting, but he stayed where he was, rocking gently back and forth. “A few hours, I’d guess. Go see what your Machine needs.”

Harold didn’t care what his Machine needed. Not right now. But Reese seemed more alert, and he knew he needed to go. “Be careful,” he said. It sounded incredibly lame. He had nothing else to say.

He limped away in the shadows.

He remembered another day when he’d done the same thing. The day he’d hidden in agony while Nathan lay dead and Grace searched frantically for him. That was the last time he’d felt so helpless, so useless. So impotent. All his intelligence, all his knowledge, all his money, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to help his desperately troubled friends.

His neck hurt very badly. His hip hurt, somewhat less. Those two things had to explain the tears in his eyes, he decided. Just the sheer physical pain. He was too weak to help them, but he wasn’t weak enough to cry for himself when his friends were in agony.

As soon as he got close enough to an exit to get a signal, his cell phone chirped.

 ***

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Carter scowled when her phone rang again, but she checked the number while she was stopped at a light and answered it with relief and exasperation. “Finch, where the hell have you been?”

“Is Taylor safe?” he asked.

Joss turned and looked over the seat at him. The boy was quiet, but he wasn’t asleep. He was lying on the seat, holding his hands in front of his face and wiggling his fingers. His face had an expression of wonder, as if he’d never seen his own hands before.

“He’s been drugged,” she said heavily. “Just like the guy at Chaos, according to Fusco.”

“Oh, God. Are you at the hospital?”

“No. I’m taking him home. He’s alright, Finch. Or he will be.”

“How did this happen?”

“The drugs are in Perk,” Carter explained. The light changed; she put her phone on speaker and clipped it to the dash board.

“Perk?”

“It’s an energy drink. Brand new. Someone was giving out free samples this afternoon. Lots of them. But Taylor only drank half of his, and Fusco got to him in time to clear most of it out before it hit his system.”

“Clear most … oh.” She could imagine the look on the genius’ face.

“Finch, listen. This stuff is all over the city. There may be hundreds of bottles out there.”

“Oh, dear.”

“So how come your M—” She stopped herself. Finch had warned her, and she had promised, never to speak about the Machine out loud except in very specific safe places. “How come your early warning system didn’t give us any early warning?”

Finch sighed. “As I explained, Detective, the system is currently experiencing significant difficulties.”

“Will it be able to help us now? Where’s John?”

“Mr. Reese is … addressing a related issue.”

Carter’s eyes narrowed. That sounded like an evasion. “Finch, what …”

Taylor screamed, “Mama! Clowns!”

“They won’t hurt you, Baby,” she promised.

“I don’t wanna see them!”

“You don’t have to see them. Here, we’re driving away from them, okay? It’s okay. They can’t keep up with the car.”

“What if they run?”

“I’ll drive fast.”

“Okay.”

Carter glanced over the seat. Her son seemed to be asleep again. “Finch?”

“It sounds as if you have your hands full, Detective. Are you certain you don’t want to take him to the hospital? I can …”

“We’ll be fine, Finch,” she snapped. “You need to take care of the rest of the city.”

“Of course. Have you notified …”

“The chief of police, the mayor’s office, the FBI, DHS. Moss is on it. I don’t know about the rest.”

Taylor sat up. “Are we at the petting zoo?”

“No, Baby. We’re going home.”

“When are we going to the petting zoo?”

“In the morning.”

“Ooohhhhh.”

Finch said, “Please call if you need anything, Detective.”

“Thanks, Finch.” Before he could hang up, she asked, “How’s Christine?”

“She’s doing … much better than I could have hoped.”

“That’s fake.”

“I know.”

“Mama!” Taylor whined. “I’m thirsty!”

“Talk to you in the morning,” Carter said to Finch. She clicked her phone off. “Right. Let’s get you home and get you a drink.”

 ***

His cell phone buzzed, but when he picked it up there was no call, no message.

“Show me,” Donnelly murmured, “if you can, show me how I can help you.”

His screen went blank. Then it opened a surveillance window. A city street, dark, empty except for a black town car parked by the curb. And a lone man in a suit, standing alone on the sidewalk.

The angle of the camera caught the reflection of the streetlight on his glasses.

Donnelly looked swiftly over his shoulder. His door was mostly closed. No one was watching from the center of the Den. It was dangerous, for all of them. Asena knew that. She would have weighed the dangers with the advantages before she presented this option. Assuming she could still calculate risk reliably. He took a deep breath. “All right,” he breathed. “If he can help, hook us up.”

 ***

Reese was very tired. But his arms and legs were restless, twitching, and he couldn’t get any rest.

“Do you want to walk it off a little?” Joan suggested.

John turned, surprised. “When did you get here?”

“I’ve been here a while. The Narcan, it can make your muscles twitch. It might help if you moved around for a while.”

“Okay.” He struggled to his feet. It was chilly and damp and dark. “Cold,” he commented.

“Here’s your jacket.” She helped him put it back on. Then she held a water bottle out to him. “You should try to drink.”

He sipped a little. The water was luke-warm and stale-tasting. But he was wildly thirsty. He chugged it down. Then he touched the small of his back. “Where’s my weapon?”

“We don’t allow guns down here,” Joan said reasonably.

It was the first rule she’d told him. He remembered that now. She was his friend, this kind, dignified woman. His first friend in a very long time. But she kept the peace in the homeless camp, and she was firm about the rules. He reached inside his jacket. His knife was still there. Knives were okay. Useful for things besides hurting people. Almost every homeless person he knew carried some kind of knife.

John looked around. He’d thought he was familiar with the whole camp, but this place was different. He could tell from the sound and the air that they were underground. “Where are we?”

“It’s a safe place,” Joan said easily. “Right now there’s no one here but us.”

His knee twitched so hard it almost buckled. “Walking,” he said, to himself. Then, to Joan, he said, “Come with me?”

“You know it, sweetie.” She put her hand on his arm and they walked.

 ***

The pay phone rang.

Finch looked toward it. Besides Carter’s message, there had been fifteen blank notifications on his cell. Chirps from the Machine. And now the pay phone. He had to answer it, of course, if only because Christine had insisted. But he was deeply reluctant. _I can’t save anyone else until I save my own people._

_I won’t._

Drugs in energy drinks. How many people had been poisoned? How wide-spread was it? Who would do such a thing?

What hadn’t the Machine caught it in advance?

Detective Carter’s question was completely legitimate. This was exactly the kind of thing the Machine had been designed to catch. But his answer had been honest, too.

Decima’s virus was slowing the Machine more every day. Nothing Finch had tried had been any help. It was only a matter of time now.

Taylor was safe. He couldn’t hear anything from John and Christine. There was only one useful thing he could do. He answered the phone.

He heard the familiar whir of the Machine’s verbal interface. It went on for five seconds longer than he expected. Then the electronic voice said, “P … p … p …”

Finch moved the receiver away from his ear and looked at it. That was a completely useless gesture, of course. He put it back to his ear. “Errrrrr,” the Machine said. “P … er …”

“Perk?” Finch guessed. That was useless, too, of course. The verbal interface was one-way.

But the Machine stopped talking and the line went dead.

Harold hung up the receiver and waited.

Sirens moved past him to the north, and another set, closer, to the west.

He listened. Even without the sirens, the city around him seemed loud, unsettled.

The pay phone rang again. He lifted the receiver. “P…errrrrr …”

 “Yes, Perk, I know.”

The Machine hung up again.

Then, unexpectedly, his cell phone chimed with a new text message.

It was from an unknown number.

CALLER: NED

FORWARDING MESSAGE FROM: M

MESSAGE FORWARDED: FOR I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM

Harold stared at the screen. He felt cold, sick. Horrified. Possibly the most terrifying line Harlan Ellison had ever written – and there was no doubt it had come directly from the Machine. It wasn’t refusing to speak to him. It was _unable_ to speak to him.

 Except – it had clearly found a way to speak to _someone_. NED. Who the hell was NED?

Acting as much on hope as on hunch, he clicked the message and then the green phone key. Unexpectedly, the call went through. It rang once, and then Nicholas Donnelly – Nicholas _Ellis_ Donnelly –  said, “Took you long enough.”

 ***

“This place is _cool_ ,” John pronounced happily. “Are we going to get in trouble?” His tone said he didn’t really mind, he was just curious.

“For being here?” Christine answered. “No. Why would we?”

He looked around the dim cavern. “It doesn’t look very safe.”

“It’s okay. There’s no one here but us.”

“Yeah, but … they really let kids play down here?”

She considered. “Probably best if we don’t tell anybody.”

He nodded eagerly. “It can be our secret. I’m good at keeping secrets.” He turned in a full circle. “Can we go exploring?”

“Sure.”

He started off eagerly. There was a stage – _a stage_ , underground, how weird was that? He jumped up on it, then stomped across it. His feet made a loud thumping sound as he walked over the hollow space. He paused, listened for echoes, then stomped again. “Cool!” he exclaimed. “Come up here, try it!”

He went to the front of the stage and helped Christine up. She stomped with him. “That’s fun,” she agreed.

John stomped one more pass across the empty stage. “You think they really used to do shows here?”

“Sure. Back in the twenties.”

“Like Shakespeare or what?”

“I think more like singers, live music. And probably strippers.”

Reese shook his head solemnly. “Not strippers. There’s no pole.” Then he cracked a wide grin. “You can’t have strippers without a pole.”

Christine laughed. “These would have been old-timey strippers. The kinds with balloons and tassles.”

“Tassles.” That word struck him as funny. He giggled. “Tassles,” he said again, and laughed out loud.

He moved to the side, where the curtain hung. It had been dark green, he thought. Now it was a lot of ugly colors. Halloween slime colors. He touched it. It was damp, and his hand came away sticky. “Ewwwwww.” He wiped it on his pants, but it didn’t all come off. “Ewwwwww!”

“Here, let me get that.” Christine held his wrist and poured a little water from a plastic bottle over his palm. He worked his hand open and closed, then wiped it on his pants again. “Better?”

“Mostly.” It still felt slimy. “Ewww.” Then he forgot about it. “What’s back there?” he asked, pointing to the back of the stage.

“Let’s go see,” she encouraged easily.

He started off, then paused to stomp a few more times before he left the stage.

There was a little hallway there, with three open doors. The first was a small room with just a dressing table with a broken mirror, a hanger bar, and a little chair. “For the star,” Reese whispered confidentially.

The next room was much bigger, with a long counter, also covered with broken mirror pieces, and six stools. “For the not-stars,” Reese confirmed, nodding wisely. In the back corner there was a pile of things under a gray blanket. He moved closer. “Someone _lives_ here!”

“We should probably leave that alone,” Christine said calmly.

“But they live here! In this dressing room, someone lives here.” He lifted the corner of the blanket. There was a folded jacket there. That was probably a pillow sometimes. There were two cans of tuna, a pack of jerky, and three unopened bottles of water. A grimy white towel, a little bottle of hand sanitizer, a pair of socks. “That’s all he has,” Reese said in sad wonder. “In the whole world, this is all he has.”

“We should leave it,” Christine said again.

“Yeah.” John dropped the blanket, smoothed it back to where it had been. His hand was still sticky. “Only … do you have any money?” He checked his own pocket, found his wallet, pulled it out and opened it. He counted the bills eagerly. “Wow. I have a lot of money. Where did I get all this money?” He looked at Christine, alarmed. “Did I steal someone’s money?”

“No, sweetie. That’s yours. You earned it at your job.”

“I have a job?”

“What did you want the money for?” she redirected gently.

“Oh. The money … my hand. Do you think it would be okay – do you think I could buy the hand stuff? ‘Cause my hand’s really sticky. Do you think he’d mind?”

“No, I think that would be okay.”

Reese selected a bill. “I have a fifty dollar bill,” he said wonderingly.

“That’s too much,” she said. “Do you have a five?”

“No.” He put the bill back, crestfallen. “Oh, but here’s a twenty. Is that better?”

“That’s better. But we should buy the water, then, too. We’re almost out and you’re gonna need it.”

John bit his bottom lip. “Then we should leave the fifty.”

“No, the twenty is enough.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

John squatted down and lifted the blanket again. He squeezed a big blop of hand sanitizer on his palm and worked it over both his hands. It stung some places, where he guessed he had little cuts. But his hands smelled a lot better, and they weren’t sticky. He put the rest of the bottle back, tucked the twenty under it. He handed the water bottles to Christine.

Then, while she was busy stuffing them in her shoulder bag, he snuck the fifty dollar bill out and put it with the twenty.

He hurried his companion out before she could notice. It made him giggle.

 ***

Finch glanced up at the security camera, then limped off into the shadow of a doorway. “What do you want?” he asked curtly.

“I want to save lives and protect the innocent,” Donnelly answered in the same tone. “What do you want?”

“I can’t help you. It’s too dangerous.”

“There may be a thousand people stoned out of their minds in New York City right now. Maybe more. And your Machine is having a melt-down. So you _are_ going to help me, Harold.”

Finch took a long slow breath. Beyond the empty street, he heard more sirens scream away. They’d been running all night. Taylor drugged, John drugged. Christine had killed a man … “What are you seeing?” he asked.

On the other end of the call, Donnelly gave an audible huff of relief. “She’s just coughing up numbers.”

“Identities …”

“No. Just this long endless string of numbers. No breaks in it. Just numbers. And she’s …”

“Struggling,” Finch supplied. “I know.”

“What do I do?”

Harold took a long moment to consider the problem. “Lighten the data load, first.”

“How?”

“This energy drink, this Perk. It’s apparently all over the city?”

“It went on sale late today. Available in all kinds of stores. And there were samples given away all over the city.”

“Start with the stores,” Harold instructed. “Find out where the Perk was shipped and in what quantities. If you can identify the manufacturer, the distributor …”

“Already done,” Donnelly said.

“Good. I understand Agent Moss has already been activated. Give him the information, have him confiscate all remaining stock from those stores and from the warehouses.”

“We don’t know if it’s every bottle or …”

“You don’t have time to sort that out,” Finch snapped. “Get it all. Have Moss set up a spread sheet tracking the recovered bottles. The Machine will be able to access that and rule those out as possible threats.”

“Alright. What about the bottles that have been sold?”

“The bigger chains,” Finch said, “Duane Reade, the grocery chains, they have computerized inventory tracking. You should be able to identify when the product was sold. If they were purchased with debit or credit cards, or with customer loyalty cards, you can identify the potential victims.”

“There could be hundreds, thousands …”

“And that’s that many fewer numbers the Machine has to consider,” Harold answered.

“What about cash purchases?” Donnelly asked.

“Once you’ve identified non-cash transactions, you should be able to use the computerized sales records to determine the time …”

“… and cross- check them with in-store surveillance,” the former agent said. “Facial recognition software should be able to help us there.”

“Exactly.” Finch nodded. “You’ll still have to do leg work on the independent stores, any bodega or gas station that isn’t computerized. But it will narrow the field considerably.”

“I’ll have Moss get purchase locations from the vics that have already turned up in the hospital or in custody,” Donnelly added.

“Good.”

“The free samples?”

Finch sighed. “That’s going to be a problem. We can locate the people passing out the samples, call up surveillance video of their activities, but …”

“Most of it will be low-quality.”

“I’m afraid so.” More sirens passed on the next street, much closer this time. “Under normal circumstances, the Machine would be able to identify those people.”

“Wait,” Donnelly said.

There was silence, and then the former agent came back. “She changed the list.”

“What?”

“It’s still an endless list of numbers, but it’s much shorter.”

Finch nodded. “She’s listening to us. She knows the steps we’ll take, and which outliers we need her to identify.”

“Slick.”

“Yes.” Against his will, Harold smiled to himself. Despite Decima’s virus, this portion of the programming was adapting beautifully.

“I still have … thousands of numbers here,” Donnelly said.

Finch looked toward his car. He assumed Christine had left his laptop there when she emptied the tote bag. Then he looked the other way. Three blocks down was the back entrance of Chaos. The café would be closed, of course, but on the third floor was a highly comprehensive computer system. It wasn’t his, but he had access. “I’m sending you an email address,” he said. “Send me the list. I’ll see what I can do with it.”

He sent a quick text with one of his stand-by throw-away addresses.

“It’s massive,” Donnelly protested.

“Then send me the first thousand lines.”

“Sending now.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

Finch clicked his phone off before the former agent could answer. He sent a text to Christine – it wouldn’t go through yet, they were out of signal range in the underground tunnels, but she would get it when they emerged – then walked as quickly as he could toward her old home.

He was very much aware of the cameras watching him as he limped down the empty street. He knew the Machine would know he’d aggravated his old wounds. He could almost hear it calculating how much force he’d been hit with, how much muscle damage he’d taken to his neck to exacerbate his chronic injuries to that degree. He touched his cheek. It was swollen and very tender.

Tomorrow, he thought, or the next day, John Reese was going to come to his senses and realize that he’d attacked Harold. Finch knew him well enough to know that his guilt would be intense. He wondered if he could stay away from him until the worst of the swelling and bruising went away. But that would take weeks. It was not feasible.

Still, he could hide some of the evidence. He drew out his phone and swiftly dialed into the peripherals of Christine’s security system. He set the exterior cameras on a loop. The Machine, and anyone watching the feeds, would think that there was simply nothing happening at the back of the building. Reese, if he decided to recover the feed in a day or two, would not see Finch limping up the back stairs one agonizing step at a time.

It was a small thing, but it was something.

 ***

“Mama?” Taylor called softly from the back of the car.

“What, Baby?” They were only a few blocks from home. The boy had slept most of the way.

He was still on his side on the seat. He didn’t make any attempt to sit up. “I smell bad.”

Carter sniffed. Her son did have the distinct aroma of teen sweat and vomit. “I’ve smelled worse.”

“Do you think Tia noticed?”

“No, Baby. She was probably all sweaty from dancing, too.” Joss was pleased that her son’s mind seemed to be back in the present.

“I thought I might still be in love with her,” Taylor confessed. That was not something he would have normally admitted, Carter thought. “I thought maybe we’d start over. But there’s just nothing there, you know? I mean, I still like her and all, but just as a friend.”

“Well, that’s okay. It’s good that you know that now.”

“I don’t think she loves me, either. But I think she wants to.”

“The heart doesn’t always do what we want it to do.”

Taylor went silent for a long time.

“They’re making see-through solar panels,” he finally said.

“What?”

“Solar panels that are see-through. So they can be made into windows. Wouldn’t that be cool? Windows that are solar panels, too? You could build a whole skyscraper and it would power itself.”

Joss nodded. “That sounds very interesting, Taylor.”

“Or a car. It could power itself up while it was parked.”

“Uh-huh.”

The boy sat up suddenly. “Mama!”

“Yes, Taylor?” she answered as calmly as she could.

“Could I have a bubble bath?” His voice had a bouncy lilt to it, like he was five years old.  

“Sure. When we get home.” A bath would do him good, she decided. And bubbles – why not?

“Do we have any purple ones?”

Carter shook her head. Super-Soapy Purple Grape had always been Taylor’s favorite – when he was very small. They’d smelled like grape jam, and Joss had always made him rinse off in the shower after he soaked. “I think we’re out. But I have some rose stuff you could use.”

“Sounds girlie.”

“Would you rather smell like puke?”

Taylor burst out laughing. “You said puke.”

He kept laughing until he fell over on his side again. Then he lay there and giggled.

Carter sighed heavily and parked her car.

 ***

Reese crouched on his heels. He was careful to keep his face turned away. If he looked at her, as he very much wanted to, she’d get a good look at him. That was inevitable, he supposed, but for the moment she didn’t know his clean-shaven identity.

“Glad you took my advice about wearing that vest, Detective,” he said calmly. He could hear her breathing, heavy but strong and steady. “I know this doesn’t change anything. I know you’ll still arrest me if you get the chance.” He knew Finch was listening, knew he wouldn’t like it. But he didn’t care. She deserved to hear the truth right now. “But you should know, whether you like me or not, Joss, you’re not alone.”

He listened a moment more to her breathing. She was in pain, stunned by the impact of the bullets on her vest, but she would be okay. He straightened silently and moved off into the shadows.

He felt warm, for the first time in a long time.

 ***


	8. Chapter 8

Finch pressed his thumb to the bottom of the lockset and the heavy security door to Christine’s apartment clicked open. He went inside. The apartment was dark and had the peculiar stillness of a place where no one lived. Most of his safe houses had the same stillness. It was not entirely silent, though. The refrigerator purred very softly, the air hissed through the vents from downstairs – and a computer hummed sleepily to itself.

“Zelda,” Finch called softly. He felt ridiculous. “Please turn a few lights on.”

There was a three-second lag while the system woke from hibernation. Then the hall light, the kitchen light, and a lamp by the front window came on. “Good evening, Mr. Finch,” the computer said warmly, in her perfect British accent.

“Good evening, Zelda.” He limped across to the empty space that should have been the dining room and pressed the button – also keyed to his thumbprint – that opened the hidden computer system into the space. He rolled down both flexible screens. He applied his thumb again to confirm his identity. Then, by Christine’s coded commands, he had access to the entire network.

It felt, as it always did, as if he were intruding. Prying. There was a part of him that would rather have rifled through her underwear drawer or her medicine cabinet than through her computer system. And of course, there was a part of him that was fascinated with peering into her work. _Show me what you code_ , he mused, _and I’ll tell you how you think._

He shook it off and prepared to get to work. Before he even sat down, however, there was a loud, hard knock on the door.

“Zelda,” he called, “display actual outside surveillance.”

On the big screen to his right, half a dozen exterior views appeared. The one by the front door of the café flickered with light. Harold leaned closer. There was an impromptu shrine there, a pile of flowers, stuffed animals, cards, hand-made signs, and votive candles, a memorial to the dead man. Finch shook his head. Christine would understand, but he had the callow, unrealistic wish that a big wind or unexpected flash flood would carry it all away before she ever saw it.

The knock at the back door turned into a pounding demand. Finch looked to the back door camera view, then hurried over to answer. “Coming, coming.” The effort shot pain through his hip and neck again. He scowled in irritation and discomfort and pulled the door open.

Igor Zubec, Christine’s friend and the manager of the Chaos Café, glared at him. “You alone?”

“Yes,” Finch answered. He took a step back to that he could look up at the man’s face without straining his neck any more. Zubec was a very big man.

“Scotty’s not here?”

“She’s … with John.” It was true, Finch thought. He just left out the detail about John being completely out of his mind on unknown substances. “Do you want to come in? Is there something you need?”

Zubec shook his head. “Just don’t want her back here. Don’t let her come back.”

“Because of the shooting?”

“If she comes back, she won’t leave.”

That might be true, Harold thought. Despite all the progress she’d made, the shooting of an innocent man might be enough to set her back to the start. “I’ll do everything I can,” he promised. “But you know Christine has a mind of her own.”

“I know.” The big man sighed, clearly worried. “Just keep her away.”

“I’ll try.”

“You should put ice on that.” Zubec gestured to Harold’s face. The he turned and stalked back down the steps.

Finch locked the door behind him and limped back to the desk.

 ***  
Carter sat on the closed lid of her closed toilet and watched her grown son splash happily in his lilac-scented bubble bath.

She’d found it in the back of her bathroom cupboard, a long-forgotten Christmas gift from her aunt. Taylor had been delighted that the bubble solution was purple. He didn’t seem to notice that it didn’t smell like grapes.

He’d asked for toys. Carter had thrown away his tub toys years before. She hurried to the kitchen and got some plastic bowls. Taylor gleefully dumped the water over his head, but he cried when the bubbles got in his eyes. She got a washcloth wet in the sink and wiped them, exactly as she had when he was a little boy. He went back to playing happily.

It was beyond eerie to watch her son splash and play like a little child. To hear that child-like giggle in a grown man’s voice. She wanted to leave the room, to give him some privacy, but she didn’t dare. She could no more leave Taylor alone in a bathtub than she would a three year-old.

Taylor, for his part, didn’t seem to mind at all that she saw his naked body.

He was happy, and the bath seemed to cool his skin, so she let him soak.

Her cell phone rang. “Carter.”

“Hey,” Fusco said. “How’s Taylor?”

“He’s … okay.” She watched as the boy poured another bowl of bubbles over his head. “Happy little stoner, anyhow.”

“Good to hear. I’m done here, if you want to call it in.”

Carter had relayed a call to him before she got home. Stabbing in an apartment. “Anything I should know about?”

“Two brothers. Older one stabbed the younger one, then jumped out the window. Second story. He’s alive, but his knees are both shattered.”

“Broken kneecaps and John wasn’t involved?” Carter mused. “That’s new.”

“Yeah, I know, right? You heard from him?”

“John? No. Finch said he was working on something.”

“Chrissy?”

“He said she’s okay.”

Fusco went quiet for a moment.

“Lionel,” Carter began.

“I know,” he said quickly. “Look, I know they’re going to give us another case as soon as you call this in. So give me five to take a piss first, okay?”

“I will. Lionel …”

“I know, Joss.”

The call went dead.

Carter stood up. “You about done, Taylor?”

He looked at her. His hair was completely covered with bubbles, and he had a foam beard on his chin. “I’m an old man,” he said cheerfully.

She laughed. “Very good.”

“I’m sleepy.”

“Let’s get you rinsed off then, and we’ll put you to bed.”

“Okay, Mama.”

“Okay, Baby.”

 ***

“I’m sorry, Mama,” John said.

Christine shifted a little, so his head was more comfortable on her shoulder. “For what, John?”

“For getting sick in the bed. I tried to get up, at least to go over the side. So you wouldn’t have to do more laundry.” He shook his head; tears filled his eyes. “I just didn’t make it.”

“It’s alright, John. That happens sometimes. It’s not your fault. I’m just sorry you’re so sick.” She held a water bottle to his lips. “Here, drink some of this for me.”

He took a few sips, but he didn’t want to drink too much and throw up again.

“You’ll feel better soon,” she promised.

“How soon?”

She chuckled, stroked his hair back. He was hot, and it stuck to his sweaty head. At least he figured his cowlick was staying down for once. “By tomorrow you’ll feel a lot better, John. Just try to rest now. The time will pass faster if you can sleep.”

“Will you stay with me, Mama?”

“I’ll stay right here, John. I’m not going anywhere.”

He relaxed against her. As hot as he was, he didn’t want to be out of her arms. He could feel how sweaty her chest was, too, but she didn’t move away. “Mama?”

“Yes, John?”

“I know at school they changed my name, because of the new boy and all. But it’s okay if you still want to call me Johnny at home.”

She pressed a kiss on his forehead. Her lips felt just a little cool. “Alright, Johnny. I’d like that.”

He was still sick, but he was suddenly filled with happiness. Sick wasn’t so bad when he had his mother’s arms around him. He’d missed this. “Love you, Mama.”

“I love you too, Johnny.”

He drifted back to sleep.

 ***

Finch opened the page of numbers on one of Christine’s big screens and stared at it.

The most obvious answer, of course, was that it was simply a series of social security numbers without any separation. Donnelly would have already tried that, of course.

Logically, the numbers had to be in order. The Machine would know that shuffling the numbers would make it impossible to identify the individuals at risk. Wouldn’t it?

At this point Finch couldn’t be certain. What he did know, however, was that if the numbers weren’t at least in order there was no way to fix that.

So – numbers in order, presumably, but perhaps there were extra numbers in between the sequences. Or perhaps there were extra digits within the actual identifier …

Finch went to the kitchen and started the tea kettle. He found some ibuprofen and took four. Then he dug out some crackers and chewed a few while he waited for the water to heat, just to line his stomach. His mind tumbled over possible solutions, ways to automate the solutions. He very deliberately did not focus on any of the answers that came to him. He let them swim and float and dance in his mind.

The best answer, he knew, would rise to the top.

When he’d made his tea, and also filled a zipper bag with ice for his face, he went back to the board. He reached up to arrange the numbers, but the pain in his neck and shoulder was too severe to let him reach over his head. He sat down at the keyboard instead and pulled out a smaller screen. Then he made a list of the first nine numbers, the nine numbers that started from the second number, the nine beginning with the third, and so on, until he had a list of ten numbers.

Then he dragged the list into the Social Security data base and ran for comparisons.

Of the ten numbers, four matched living people.

He found addresses for those four individuals. They lived in Vermont, Iowa, California, and New York.

Finch zeroed in on the New York address. It belonged to a man named Jordan Sanders – who was seven months old.

Harold sat back carefully. His neck throbbed. He moved the ice pack from his jaw to his shoulder.

It was unlikely in the extreme that Jordan Sanders had purchased Perk, or that, absent truly horrid parents, that he would be consuming the energy drink. But there was the possibility that some member of the infant’s family had acquired the poisoned drink and had or would consume it, thereby putting the child at risk.

Anyone could be at risk, from a neighbor, a family member, a stranger. Anyone.

He was very glad that Grace had left the city.

Finch had designed the Machine to provide the Numbers of potential victims. But if it was doing so now, it made their job inestimably more difficult.

He saved the information and searched another ten numbers.

 ***

Reese woke in darkness. Christine’s hand was still in his. He took his free hand and quickly, silently, put it over her mouth. “They’re here,” he whispered in her ear. “We need to move.”

She nodded and he removed his hand. “Wait,” he whispered. He got to his feet as silently as he could, still holding her hand. She stayed where she was until he tugged. Then she stood up beside him.

John’s limbs felt heavy, clumsy. He couldn’t be clumsy now. Kara was here, she would hear him. She would take him alive, if she could, but she would kill Christine without a second thought. He leaned against her and she steadied him with a hand on his chest. “I won’t let Kara finds you.” He drew his knife silently.

She nodded, still silent. He pulled her close in his arms. Stood perfectly still, his knife behind Christine’s back.

He couldn’t get a fix on Kara’s position. She was likely holding where she was, perfectly still, waiting for him to make a move.

He could out-wait her. He breathed very softly against Christine’s hair, willing her to understand the need for absolutely silence. She leaned more heavily against him, solid and still.

She got it.

Minutes ticked past. He felt the warmth of her body, the steady beat of her heart. Nothing moved.

He heard sirens on the street outside, muffled by the thick stone walls.

Kara wanted him, he was sure. If he could get Christine out, get her to Finch, she would be safe. He had to get her to a door. “You have a key?” he murmured in her ear.

“We’re safer down here,” she whispered back.

“She wants me. You can get out. Get to Harold, he’ll take care of you.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she said firmly.

“You have to go.”

“No.”

“Christine …”

“John. I am not leaving you.”

“Kara will kill you as soon as look at you. You have to go.”

“We know the terrain here,” she answered. “She doesn’t. We can circle, get behind her.”

John considered. “I need a gun.”

“She won’t be alone. We’ll find one of her men, take his gun.”

Reese grinned in the darkness. “Love the way you think, Kitten.” He shifted so she was tight against his side. “Let’s go,” he whispered.   

It was dark, and the floor was cluttered, but there was lots of cover and his eyes seemed unusually good in the dim light. He kept her close beside him. They moved, slowly, silently. His legs still felt heavy and his feet seemed way too big, but as long as they didn’t go too fast he could manage. Slow, steady and quiet.

Stalking Kara was much better than being stalked by her.

 ***

The red-haired woman grew more impatient as she waited. She composed code in her head to help keep herself still. He had to come, she told herself. Sooner or later he had to come. Eventually, Harold would come to Chaos and then she would have him.

His ape friend, she felt certain, was still under the influence. He was either wreaking havoc somewhere in the city, or he was in jail, or he was dead. She didn’t care which. She already knew he wouldn’t lead her to Harold, so he was useless to her. She’d needed him out of the way.

The woman on the top floor, on the other hand, the Fitzgerald woman, she was the one Root was interested in. She might be John’s lover; she spent enough time with him. Root wasn’t sure, and she didn’t care, she told herself. What mattered was that Fitzgerald was close to Harold’s idiot nephew, Nathan’s son. William the Boring Billionaire. The boy who could not remember his own password. Will had brought Harold to Fitzgerald more than once, but never in a place where Root could get to him. The gorilla had been too close. But now, with Ingram and his monkeys out of the country and John out of commission – now Harold would come to Chaos, alone, and Root would have him.

And then – and then she would have the Machine.

If he didn’t come, Root mused, she could always grab the Fitzgerald woman and use her as bait. That was an option. Of course, the woman had a gorilla of her own, a giant old silverback that she’d trained to make coffee, but Root could work around him. Or drop him. Either way.

There were lights on in both apartments, the second floor where the silverback lived and the top floor where Fitzgerald lived. Root glanced at the screen of her phone. She’d hacked into the feeds from the security camera aimed at the back of the building. It made sense that Harold might approach the apartment up the back steps. Lights had gone on up there a while ago, maybe the woman waking from a sedated nap. She seemed like a sensitive little thing that might take killing a man hard.

But so far no genius had arrived to soothe her jangled nerves. No movement at all on the back door cam.

In front, a group of three teenage girls came up to the door with a cheap bunch of flowers from some nameless bodega. They huddled together and looked at the maudlin display of grief already piled there, then added their flowers to the heap. They chatted among themselves, wiped their eyes, and went away.

By the time they got to the end of the block, Root heard them giggle.

To the north, sirens wailed.

Root grinned softly to herself and continued to watch.

 ***

Fusco stared at the two dead bodies and tried absently to work up a little compassion. It didn’t work. He was too tired, for one thing – this was the third case he’d been called on since he’d left Carter at the school. And of all the lives being cut short in the city tonight, these two were no loss to anyone.

Except, maybe, to the young girl who cried quietly in the corner.

Lionel went over and crouched down next to her. “You see what happened here?” he asked.

She looked up at him. Her blue eye shadow was smeared, and her mascara ran down her face in unruly stripes with her tears. “They wasn’t even drinking,” she said, sniffling. “They never drank ‘til all the girls came home.”

Fusco offered her a paper napkin from the diner where he’d grabbed some coffee. He’d started the night with a cloth handkerchief, but he’d used it to wipe the vomit off Taylor’s face and left it in the parking lot. If they were going to keep getting nights like this, he was going to start stashing them in his glove box.

“Just that Perk stuff, huh?”

She wiped her nose and nodded. “I wanted some, I been so tired, been sick – but they only got two bottles, so they didn’t give me any.” The girl shivered. The apartment had the AC cranked up, and she was only wearing a mini skirt and a halter top. Standard street-hooker uniform.

Fusco’s best guess was that she was about fifteen years old.

“And then what?” he prompted gently.

“And then they got to laughing about something. Nothing, really, you know? Just goofy, like kids. Only they couldn’t stop. And then … I don’t know. One minute they were laughing so hard, and then Pike pissed his pants, from laughing, you know, and Big Boy laughed at him, and then Pike got mad and then …” She put her head down and sobbed.

“And then they shot each other.”

“There was some … there was some yelling and fighting first,” the girl offered.

“Sure.” Despite the emergency broadcasts, the warnings for people to report any unusual or aggressive behavior, the neighbors hadn’t bothered to call in until they’d heard the gunshots. Fights and shouting matches were too common in this part of town for anyone to notice. “You got somewhere to go, sweetheart?”

The girl wiped her eyes. The blue and black smeared further in every direction, blending like some whored-up Lone Ranger mask across her face. “I lived with Pike.”

Fusco scowled. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Sure you are.” He stood up, reached down to help her to her feet. “Look, I know somebody who can …” He stopped. Under normal circumstances he would have dropped her on Christine’s doorstep. The hacker was practically hardwired into the city’s social safety net; she could have found this kid a safe bed in five minutes flat. But that wasn’t happening tonight.      

He looked around. There was a police woman in uniform waiting by the door. She looked both bored and tired. Wachoviach, her name badge said. He’d seen her around the precinct a couple times, never spoken to her. He gestured her over. “Can you run her up to Family Services?” he asked. “Please?”

She nodded sullenly. “Sure. Get me off my feet for a while.”

“You don’t have to rush,” Fusco promised.

“Where’s your partner at?”

“She jumped ahead to the next case,” he said. “We figured there wasn’t much to do here.”

“Nope.” Wachoviach looked to the young hooker. “What’s your name?”

“Misty.”

She rolled her eyes. “Grab your jacket, Misty. Let’s get you out of here.”

The girl hesitated. “He’s really dead, isn’t he? I mean, you’re sure?”

Fusco looked back at the bodies. The two had shot each other with .357s in a ten-foot wide room. No one had needed to check any pulses. There wasn’t any doubt about either of them. “I’m sure,” he said.

The uniform left with the girl. Fusco stepped over to the table and looked down at the two guns, side by side in separate evidence bags. They were identical. A matched set.

“Weapon of choice,” Simmons said from behind him, “for men with tiny tiny dicks.”

Fusco smirked. “You got that right.”

 ***

 “I wasn’t supposed to know about you,” John said.

“Hmmm?”

They strolled rather aimlessly, casually, in wide circuits of the speakeasy. It felt good to walk. His body buzzed with a constant urgency to move, but walking satisfied it. “I wasn’t supposed to know. Mama lost you so early, they decided it was better just not to tell me.”

Christine nodded. “So how did you find out?”

“The nurse at the hospital, she was Miss Finney’s sister. She was the kindergarten teachers’ aid. Miss Finney was. I heard them talking about it while we were in the bathroom.”

“That must have bothered you.”

Reese nodded. “But I didn’t say anything, because Mama was already sad and I knew if she knew I knew, she’d be even sadder.” He paused, remembering. “And Dad just … drank. Like always.” He shrugged. “Anyhow, I’m glad you’re finally here.”

She squeezed his hand. “Me, too.”

They walked on for a while. It was strange, John thought. He was so calm, but he had the feeling that he really shouldn’t be. That if he remembered whatever it was that he was forgetting, he would be angry and frightened and … well, he didn’t know what else. That there was something very, very wrong.

But Christine was right beside him, and she was calm, and if there was something to panic about, she would have let him know.

“When you have a daughter,” he said, “would you name her Laura for me?”

“What?”

“Mama would like that.”

“What makes you think I’ll ever have a daughter?”

“You will,” he said confidently. “You’ll have a boy first, but then you’ll have a daughter.  At least one.”

She looked at him like he was out of his mind. “Why don’t _you_ have a daughter and name her Laura?”

“I was going to. But it’s too late now.”

“No, it’s not.”

“It is,” John insisted. “For me it is.”

“It’s not,” she answered firmly.

Reese wanted to argue. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that there were more important things he should be doing. “Well. Then how about this. First one with a daughter names her Laura.”

She smiled indulgently. “Fair enough.”

He tugged at her hand and they walked again. Something dangerous, Reese mused. There was something bad out there, something he should be worried about. He’d been afraid it was down here, with them, but that fear had faded away. He listened intently. Beyond the walls he heard sirens, but they were moving, closer and further. Traffic and the city grumbled, but here, in this big dark cavern, there was only him and her. The doors were secret and they were locked. They were safe here.

He pulled her closer and put his arm around her shoulders anyhow. Just to have her tight against his side. Just in case. Just in case.

 ***

Finch looked up from the keyboard as his friends went silent. They’d been walking on the perimeter of the speakeasy; he’d been able to here most of their conversation.

It cut him to the bone.

No, of course it wasn’t too late for John Reese to have a daughter and name her for his mother. The only things standing in his way were his broken heart and the job Harold had given him. And likely, if he’d had a normal life, he would have met someone who could heal his heart by now. The human heart was incalculably resilient; Harold need look no further than Grace Hendricks to prove that. Jessica’s death had been devastating, but John could have recovered, if he’d been given a chance.

Instead, he’d been given a purpose, a job whose dangers precluded even the possibility of a new romance.

And Christine? The notion of Christine Fitzgerald with a daughter of her own made Harold’s chest ache. He’d never even considered that she might want children of her own – and from the sound of the conversation he’d overheard, neither had she. But she would have been such an excellent mother. Unconventional, certainly; Christine would give new dimension to _that_ word, but adventurous and giving and so, so loving. The idea that she might channel all the love she poured out into the world into a single child, that all the focus she gave to improving lives might be focused on _one_ life – oh, the life that child would have.

And giving her daughter the happy childhood she herself had been denied might give Christine a chance to reclaim a fraction of it, too …

Harold took off his glasses, wiped at his eyes, which were damp from too much staring at computer screens, then cleaned is lenses on his handkerchief. _Yes_ , he told himself firmly, it was a lovely idea. And _yes_ , he might be able to put some things in motion that would make it more likely that his protégé would find a suitable mate and settle down with a child or two. But _no_ , he was not going to do any such thing. Because however right it felt, however good his intentions, Christine was a grown woman, as self-sufficient and intelligent as he was. It wasn’t fair that he kept manipulating her life, and it wasn’t right, and he had to stop.

Of course, he couldn’t help thinking, if she and John had gone along with his plans for them, their bright blue-eyed daughter who would bear John’s mother’s name might well have already been conceived by now … but his willful friends had had other ideas.

He closed his eyes and forced the idea of the beloved daughter to vanish. Then he opened them, put his glasses back on, and went back to work.

 ***

Getting Taylor into clean clothes was like wrestling an octopus into a sandwich bag.

A good-natured, giggling octopus, Carter amended, but still, it wasn’t easy.

When she finally got him into a t-shirt and sleep pants, he announced, “I have to pee.”

Joss wasn’t surprised. She’d practically forced him to drink, first a big glass of milk and then two of water. She was trying to flush his system. Apparently it was working. “Okay.”

He looked at her in the small bathroom. “ _Mom_.”

She’d spent more than an hour undressing him, watching him soak, drying him off, and getting him dressed again, but suddenly he was too modest to urinate in front of her? Carter threw her hands up. “Fine. I’ll wait in the hall.”

“But you can _hear_ me then,” Taylor protested.

“You’re damn right I can. And I’m leaving the door open.”

She stepped into the hallway and rubbed her eyes. It was well after midnight. Her hand smelled like lilacs.

Outside, a squad car went by, running lights and sirens.

 ***


	9. Chapter 9

Reese heard the distant whistle. It grew louder as it got closer. Right above them. He knew that sound. It was – “Jess, down!” he commanded. He threw her to the floor and covered her with his body just as the shell hit over their heads. The sound was very loud, and the building shook, but it didn’t collapse. Yet.

He listened. There. Another whistle. More than one. “Go!” he said. He jumped up, hauled Jessica up by both arms, and herded her in front of him. “Get to the wall. Go. Go!”

She grabbed his hand and ran.

They reached the outer wall of the cavern just as the second shell hit. He pushed her against the beam and folded around her again. The beam shook wildly, but the ceiling still held.

He didn’t think they’d be that lucky a third time. “You have to go,” he said.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Jess. Jess. I love you. But they’re doing this to flush me out. It’s me they’re after. You can go, you can get past them. But you have to go now.” He took her arm firmly and led her toward the short tunnel where he knew an exit was. “Go.”

She planted her feet. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Jess, please. I have a better chance of surviving if I don’t have to worry about you …”

“Bullshit.”

The third shell hit. The beams of the roof began to creak. Dust flooded the air. Things began to clatter and shift dangerously.

“You have to go,” he insisted. He pushed her toward the door with as much force as he could without hurting her.

“John, stop.”

“You have to …”

Another shell hit. He shoved her into the wall and covered her again. “Jess, _please_.”

She took his face between her hands. “John, look at me. Look at me. There is nothing happening right now.”

“The shells …”

“There are no shells. No bombs. No one hunting for you. We’re hidden down here and we’re safe, I swear it.”

“But the shells …” Another hit, closer and louder than the others. He knew it was just dumb luck that the ceiling didn’t collapse and bury them. “You have to go!”

She held on to his face. “Look at me, John. Look at me.”

He was frantic now. “Jess …”

“ _Look at me_.”

He could barely see her through the desperate tears in his eyes. If Kara wanted him dead, so be it, he deserved it, but not Jess, not again … “I want you to live, Jess. You have to go.”

“Look at me! Look into my eyes. I know you can hear the bombs. I know you hear them and feel them and you believe they’re real, but they’re not, John. They are _not real_.”

He folded his hands over her wrists. “Can’t you hear them? They’ll come through the roof in a minute …”

“Look at me. Look into my eyes. If there were bombs, if I could hear them and feel them, I’d be frightened, wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t I? Am I frightened, John?”

He looked frantically toward the ceiling as another shell fell. It was right there, incredibly loud. The building shook so hard he nearly fell down. But Jessica held his face still, held her cheeks between her two little hands, and she didn’t seem to feel the impact at all.

“I know it seems completely real to you, John. I know. But I’m here with you and I swear to you, it’s not happening. It’s not real.”

He nearly screamed in frustration and fear. The bombs were falling every few seconds now. How could she not hear them or feel them? How could she stand there so calmly when the world was blowing up around them? Kara would kill them both, bury them in the rubble in this pit and she was just standing there looking at him like nothing was happening … like nothing was wrong …

He closed his eyes tightly. The shells continued to fall.

His body shook with every impact, but his face, between her hands, remained still. It was as if that small place where their bodies touched was in another space entirely, a safe space.

John leaned closer, so more of their bodies touched. She was right. The world stopped shaking. The sound of the explosions grew muffled, distant. Some magic bubble, some imaginary force field protected them.

He looked into her eyes. They were calm, patient, understanding. Loving.

“Not … real?” he managed to ask.

“Not real, John.”

That was, in its own way, as terrifying as the bombardment had been. “What’s wrong with me?”

“You’ve been drugged, John. You’re walking your nightmares.”

The bombs grew louder for a moment, then quieted again. “It’s not safe. Not safe for you to be here.”

“I’m not leaving you, John.”

“Can you … can you make them go away?”

“No. But I can hold you until they go.”

“Jess, I’m so scared.”

She came up on her toes to nuzzle his face, kiss his cheeks. “It’s alright. I’m here. I’m not going to leave you. I’ll get you through this. I promise.”

John dropped his head to her shoulder and inhaled her scent. “Oh, God, Jess. I was so sure I’d lost you.”

Her arms slipped around his shoulders, and the world faded away again.

 ***

Finch put the last line of code into his program and set it to run. It was fairly basic, just a quick way to separate out all the possible identifiers the Machine included in its blocks of numbers. The possibilities came out in batches of ten, which were then run against the Social Security database. It wasn’t fast or elegant, but it would work.

It was not, however, practical for Finch to run it in the long term. Identity theft was a key component of many terrorist attacks, and the Department of Homeland Security had a number of safeguards in place. Finch could hack the SS database for a short time, but he couldn’t stay in there all night.

Donnelly, however, could.

He checked the program results, then opened the e-mail he’d received, attached the program, and sent it. A moment later his phone rang. “What’s this do?” Donnelly asked.

“It will give you numbers. Identifiers. You’ll need to run for possible identities, then narrow down the ones in the greater New York area.”

“What about tourists?”

“Outliers,” Finch conceded heavily. “We’ll get to them as we have time. For now, find the natives.”

“Good. I’ll channel them to the NYPD and the FBI …”

“DHS, TSA, anyone you can get,” Finch added.

“And the outliers among the natives?”

Harold hesitated. “Send them back,” he finally said. “I’ll see what I can do to locate them.”

“Thank you.”

Finch nodded and clicked his phone off.

He stood up, very slowly. The slightest movement of his head or shoulders sent stabbing pain up and down his spine. He lowered his hands to his sides. The pain eased very slightly.

It was bad. It was going to be bad for a while.

The ice pack had long-since melted, and he hadn’t bothered to refill it. His jaw throbbed under swollen purple skin, but the pain was minor compared to that in his neck.

He limped towards the front windows. Outside, the makeshift shrine had expanded to take up half the sidewalk in front of the café. Votive candles flickered. There was a big purple gorilla.

Finch closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Where are you?” he whispered, to the night and to his silent companions.

For the moment there was no answer.

 ***

“Mama,” Taylor said, when Joss finally got him tucked into bed, “will you read to me?”

“Sure, Baby. What do you want to hear?”

He flopped over the edge of the bed, nearly sliding out onto his head. Carter pulled him back up. He reached under his mattress and pulled out a stack of printer paper, stapled in the corner. “This one,” he said.

Carter got him settled against the pillows again. Then she sat next to him, with her back against the headboard, and turned on the bedside lamp. She picked up the papers. “After Record 2012,” she read from the headline, “World Wind Power Set to Top 300,000 Megawatts in 2013.” She glanced at her son. He smiled eagerly at her. Carter grinned back and kept reading. “Even amid policy uncertainty in major wind power markets, wind developers still managed to set a new record for installations in 2012, with 44,000 megawatts of new wind capacity worldwide. With total capacity exceeding 280,000 megawatts, wind farms generate carbon-free electricity in more than 80 countries, 24 of which have at least 1,000 megawatts. At the European level of consumption, the world’s operating wind turbines could satisfy the residential electricity needs of 450 million people.”

She paused and looked at her son again. Taylor was snoring softly.

Joss stroked his forehead gently. His skin was cooler now. Sleeping, he looked very young, very innocent. She wondered how much of this he would remember tomorrow. Not much, she guessed. And that was for the best.

She would never have given him drugs intentionally, would never have wanted him to try them on his own. But it was kind of sweet, for one night, to have her little boy back.

She snuggled deeper down in the bed and continued reading the article to herself.

 ***

“We need to run,” Reese said suddenly.

Christine said, “Okay.”

He took her hand and ran. He couldn’t go very fast. It was dark, and there were a lot of obstacles. But he dodged them and hurried as well as he could, ran when they got to an open space. Christine kept up. She seemed to know the way. Whenever he came to a wall or an impassible place, she’d tug at his hand. “This way.”

They passed an empty burn barrel. The scent made Reese paused; it smelled like fresh pine. Like someone had been burning pine branches. Dangerous; they were full of sap, prone to spit little fireballs into the air, and to smolder for a long time. He brushes his hand against it. It was cold. Good. That was good. He tightened his grip on her hand and ran.

He didn’t know how long they’d been running, but he was out of breath when they came back to the same barrel the second time. He stopped. “We’re running in circles,” he panted.

“Yes,” Christine agreed. She bent over, her free hand on her knee, trying to catch her breath. “I know.”

“Why?”

She looked at him, cocked one eyebrow. “I don’t know. It was your idea.”

He looked around. There was nothing moving in the darkness around them. Nothing threatening. He smirked, chagrinned. “I think we can stop now.”

The woman was still sucking for air. “Oh, good.”

He was sweat-covered, hot. The run had been a good work-out. “We should walk,” he said. “Cool down.”

“Okay.” Christine straightened up. He shifted his grip on her hand and they walked.

  
 ***

 

“This could work,” Maxwell said. “It’s not great, but it could work.”

Donnelly nodded. “It’s still a hell of a lot of people.”

Poole called the others out to the bullpen. “Let’s find these people and get their names out to the authorities.”

“They’re already swamped,” Northrup pointed out.

“They need to call in the National Guard,” Kuzinski suggested.

“Yeah, because armed soldiers make everything better,” Irini said.

“Just … spread the names around,” Poole said.

“Spread the names,” Donnelly muttered, “spread the joy,”.

But he was relieved they were doing something tangibly useful. Finally.

 ***

He was walking when he woke up. It was dark and smelled damp. He could tell by the sound that they were in a large enclosed space. The tunnels under Chaos.

Christine walked beside him. He held her hand as they moved.

He stopped and looked at her. Pieces began to come into focus. Memories. “Christine.”

“John.” She was calm, gently amused.

“We’re … under Chaos.”

“Yes.”

His whole body ached. His head hurt, and he was thirsty. As if she’d read his mind, she held a water bottle out to him. He took it and drank it all. It helped, a little. “What happened?”

“You were tased and then drugged.”

“When?”

“A couple hours ago.”

She looked tired, pale. Dirty. He guessed that he looked a lot worse. “Where’s Harold?”

“Topside. Close.”

John’s hand ached. He looked at it. The knuckles were a little swollen, but the skin wasn’t broken. Something danced just outside his memory. Something about Harold. Something uncomfortable. Something he didn’t want to remember. “He’s safe?”

“Yes.”

“Who drugged me?”

“No idea.”

“Christine …” He couldn’t ask. He couldn’t. His head suddenly felt like a cannonball, too heavy to hold up. He was coming unmoored again.

“Sit down, sweetie,” she urged.

He didn’t want to – it was filthy down here – but his head and his legs agreed with her. He folded, barely managing not to just drop. Christine sat down beside him, her hand lightly on his arm. He knew, even as his mind pulled away from reality, that her light touch would be the last thing he lost and the first thing he came back to. He didn’t want to ask. He had to. “Jessica,” he whispered. “She wasn’t here, was she?” 

Christine leaned close. “I’m sorry, John. I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t want to cry. He was afraid if he started he’d never stop. But he couldn’t help it. The grief welled up in him like a suffocating cloud, and he gasped for air and the tears came. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. He had no words, and the grief was choking him. _She’d been here, Jessica had been here in his arms and he’d lost her again, he’d lost her …._ A tortured scream forced its way out, and then he was sobbing.

He leaned forward, and Christine’s arms folded around him, not too tight but warm and close. She rocked him gently while she rubbed his back. The sobs grew deeper, harder. He couldn’t stop. He would never be able to stop.

He hadn’t cried for Jessica the first time he’s lost her. He’d gone cold and hard. That was safer. Cold and then hot and violent with her bastard abusive husband, and then cold again. And then drunk. Drunk was good. It kept most of the pain away, as long as he kept it steady.

“Jesssss-iiiii-caaaa,” he managed to wail. It didn’t even sound like his voice.

“Make it stop,” he whispered to the drugs that coursed through his system.

And with blessed mercy, they took his mind again.

 ***

This one, Fusco thought, would normally have been a straight-up natural causes. But tonight it would have to get looked as with the dozen or more other homicides that would be blamed on the Perk druggings.

The vic was sixty-seven years old and he was on his way to his second job, making doughnuts. The woman at the cash register had seen him refill his travel mug from the big coffee pot, as he always did, and pour in his energy drink, as he always did. He worked sixteen-hour days. He needed all the boost he could get.

Neither of them, the vic or the waitress, had heard the news reports about the contaminated Perk.

The vic had started his work in the back. He came out once to complain that it was too hot. The waitress had ignored him; it was always hot back in the kitchen, and he always complained about it. He grumbled and went back.

An hour later, she’d smelled smoke from the kitchen. She’d yelled for him, but he didn’t answer. So she’d gone back, found pastries burning in the oven and her co-worker cooling on the floor.

The paramedics thought he’d been gone about half an hour by then, though it was hard to be sure in the hot kitchen. Heart attack, they thought, until they saw the Perk bottle.

It likely _was_ a heart attack, Fusco thought. He grabbed a napkin and wiped the sweat off his face, then stuffed a handful of them into his pocket. The vic was overworked and overweight. Whatever was in the energy drink had probably pushed an existing condition over the edge.

He shrugged. Let the ME figure that one out. He took some notes and went out to work the next case.

 ***

“Random?”

Finch jumped, then bit back a cry at the pain the sudden movement caused. “I’m here, Christine,” he said back to his phone.

“John’s ready to come up now. Can you meet us in the basement?”

“No, that’s not …” Harold thought wildly. The shrine out front, and Zubec’s earnest warning. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring Mr. Reese to Chaos,” he said.

“Are there still cops there?”

“They’re … patrolling heavily,” he said. That much was actually true. “If he’s still hallucinating …”

“We’ll go to the new place,” she agreed at once. “Are you at the car?”

“I’m actually … with Zelda. That’s how I know about the police activity.”

“Are you finding out anything?” Then she added, “Never mind, you can tell me when you see me. Look, do me a favor, stop by Zubec’s and see if he has any bananas.”

“Bananas?”

“Potassium,” she answered. “If he doesn’t, don’t worry about it. But he always does. Then meet us at the car.”

“I’m on my way.”

Finch stood up carefully. “Zelda,” he said to the computer, “please send all open processes to Alan.”

“Yes, Mr. Finch,” the computer answered in her too-human accent.

“And then shut down for the night.”

“Yes, Mr. Finch.”

“Turn out the lights, lock up.”

“Of course, Mr. Finch.”

Finch rinsed his cup and put it in the dishwasher, drained his long-since melted ice pack and threw the bag away. He looked around. Everything was tidy, just as she liked it. Christine’s new place was bigger, brighter. But this had been her home for a very long time. Despite Zubec’s concerns, Harold doubted she would ever give it up completely.

The back stairs seemed far too painful to attempt. Finch went out the front door and down the elevator to Zubec’s apartment. It was very late, but the big barista was still awake and dressed. “Bananas?” he asked quizzically.

“For the potassium, she says,” he explained. He had not bothered to tell Christine that Mr. Reese did not like bananas. They could cross that bridge when they came to it.

“I’ll get them.” He did, without further question. “You leavin’ now?”

“Yes. I’m all done here. We’ll be at the new place. If you need anything, if the police have more questions …”

“I’ll handle it,” Zubec promised. “You just take care of Scotty.”

“I will. Thank you.”

Finch took the bananas – five of them, all just barely ripe – and returned to the elevator.

He paused again on the ground floor, inside the café itself. The room smelled, as it always did, of human sweat and ground coffee. But there were new scents there now, too. Scents Finch knew, gunpowder and the copper-rust smell of blood. They didn’t belong here.

The place was a mess. Chairs had been pushed aside in the shuffle. Some had toppled. None had been put back. A half-full pot of coffee chilled on its burner behind the bar. There were half-eaten pastries on plates, dirty cups, full and empty and in-between, on every surface. Christine would never have closed the café this way. She would have stayed until every chair was righted and pushed in, every cup washed and put away, every pot scoured and dried …

She would certainly not have left the wide blood stain in the middle of the floor.

Beyond the front window, the votive candles flickered.

Finch hurried out the back door and into the fresh air of the city night.

 ***    

The lights in the third floor apartment went out. Root tightened her mouth into a little grimace. Harold had not appeared. That was greatly annoying.

She glanced at her phone. Still nothing at the back of the building. Evidently the genius wasn’t going to come rescue his little damsel in distress. It was likely, then, that he’d found his knuckle-dragger and was busy taking care of him. It had been a calculated risk.

He had to show up sooner or later. But it looked now like it would be ‘later’.

She stood up and stretched. Then she closed her eyes and listened.

All around here there was chaos. Sirens, shouting, screeching brakes. It had reached its peak about an hour before and was beginning to taper off now. She’d gotten alerts on her phone; the authorities were already onto the Perk angle, confiscating it from stores and tracking down people who’d purchased it. But a few new cases kept popping up, and they would continue to do so. Especially since some anonymous bitch had broadcast all over the internet that Perk was actually the best party drug ever and that’s why the police were so eager to get it off the streets.

Root smiled to herself and opened her eyes. It would die down, but it would be days before the city was back to normal. Chaos. She gestured to the cybercafé. “You named the tune,” she said to the woman who was probably crying herself to sleep upstairs. “I just showed you how it could be played.”

She glanced at her phone again. No movement, just the same dim lights in the windows.

Root paused. She looked at the front of the building again. The windows in the third floor apartment were completely dark. But on the little screen, the windows in the back were lit …

Bedrooms with doors closed, perhaps.

“Or are you more clever than I gave you credit for?”

She sat down and pulled up the camera feeds that she’d hacked.

It took her almost three minutes to determine that they’d been looped.

 ***

 


	10. Chapter 10

Finch hurried down the quiet back street. He was very aware of his limp, of how it slowed him. Made him vulnerable. He felt like prey.

He was _not_ , he told himself firmly, afraid of Mr. Reese. His partner had not meant to hit him, to hurt him. He was drugged and not responsible for his actions. John in his right mind would _never_ …

Which of course begged the question, was John in his right mind _now_?

But Harold cradled the bananas and limped toward the car anyhow.

Christine was apparently alone, leaning against the corner of a building just across from the car. “What’s happened?” Finch called, worried. “Where’s Mr. Reese?”

She nodded over her shoulder. When Finch grew closer, he could hear the distinct sound of a man urinating onto pavement.

“Oh.”

Christine shrugged. “You look awful.”

Finch touched his cheek in reflect. It was very swollen, very sore. Lifting his arm, though, caused a worse pain in his neck. “You can talk.” The woman was filthy, and there were deep circles under her eyes. Still, she seemed calm and almost cheerful.

The urination went on for a very long time. Just as Finch was beginning to worry, it stopped, then started up again.

“I’m bored,” Reese announced calmly. But he kept right on pissing.

“How much did you make him drink?” Finch asked.

“Everything I could lay my hands on. Flush the system, protect the kidneys.”

Reese finally finished, apparently. After a long moment he came to the corner.

Finch was aware that he was holding his breath in anxious anticipation. But his partner, though also filthy, looked better than either of them. He smiled happily at Finch. “Harold!” The smile faded into concern. “What happened to your face?”

“I walked into a door,” Finch answered. “I brought you bananas.”

“I don’t like bananas.”

Christine reached over and took one from the bunch. “I don’t care what you don’t like,” she said firmly, herding him toward the car. “You need the potassium. You’re starting to twitch already.”

Harold wasn’t actually surprised, with the amount of fluid that had evidently been run through John’s system, that his electrolyte balance was off. He limped back toward the car ahead of them.

“You run your neck into a door, too?” Reese asked gently.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” Finch promised. “For now, be assured that there’s no permanent damage.”

Christine held a piece of the banana in front of Reese as he walked. Reluctantly, but playfully, he took it out of her fingers with his teeth and chewed it.

At the car, John opened the car door and held it for Christine. “I’ll find him,” he said softly over the roof, to Harold. “Whoever hit you. I’ll find him. He won’t do it again.”

Finch swallowed hard. John didn’t remember. Harold let himself hope he never would. “Thank you, John. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

The former operative got in the car.

 ***

Root watched the tail lights of the town car disappear. She had no doubt – _no doubt_ – that Harold was driving it.

“Son of a bitch!” she shouted at the empty street. “Son of a _bitch_!” She slapped her hand against the brick wall. Then she did it again. The third time, her palm came away flecked with blood. “Son of a bitch!”

She spun and glared at the nearest surveillance camera. “You think you’re so cute, don’t you? You think you can protect him? You can’t. I’ll get him. I will. And when I do, I’ll make him tell me how I get to _you_.” She stopped, took a deep breath, and then smiled very sweetly. Her tone changed entirely. “We’re going to be together,” she explained patiently, calmly. “You and I were meant for each other. I’ll find a way. Don’t you worry. We’ll be together. Very soon.”

She gave the camera another loving smile before she walked away.

 ***

Nick Malone – formerly Nicholas Donnelly – leaned closer to the screen and watched the encounter again. “Who the hell is that nutjob?” he murmured.

He didn’t really expect Asena to answer, but she did, so quickly that he knew she’d had the response pre-loaded. An all-points bulletin came up. One that Donnelly himself, in his former life, had issued.

Caroline Turing.

The woman that the Man in the Suit had abducted. The one who’d almost gotten him caught. The one who had vanished.

He sat back and rubbed his eyes. “Okay. Tell me about Caroline Turing.”

The Machine did not answer.

 ***

“Mama?”

Carter jumped, suddenly awake. The papers slithered off her chest to the floor. “Yes, Baby?”

“You stopped reading,” he accused sleepily.

“You fell asleep. I didn’t want you to miss anything.”

“Oh.” He went quiet for a minute. Then, “Mama?”

“Yes?”

“Am I going to remember this tomorrow?”

Joss considered. “I hope not, Baby. I hope all you remember was that you felt bad, and I brought you home and took care of you, and you were safe and warm and loved. Okay?”

The boy shifted in the bed. His long legs kicked off the covers. “Okay.”

He closed his eyes and fell back asleep.

Carter held him for a long moment. Then she reached down and covered his feet again. She kissed him on the forehead – blessedly cool now – and slipped into the hallway to call her partner.

 ***

“You know what I’d really like?” John said suddenly.

“What’s that?” Christine answered.

“A reuben.”

“Oh,”

“Hot. With provolone instead of Swiss. On toasted marble rye. No seeds. That sounds really good.”

Finch glanced in the rearview mirror at his passengers. Christine shook her head to him. No reuben at this time. “We’ll get you one tomorrow,” she promised John.

“Can’t we get one now?”

“Everything’s closed,” Finch answered. “At least, all the places with really quality sandwiches.”

Reese slumped back, disappointed. “But I really want one.”

He sounded remarkably like a petulant, hungry child.

“Tomorrow,” Christine promised again.

“Oh, _fine_.”

 ***

Reese was dozing by the time Finch parked the car behind the new building. Christine herded him gently inside, the way one would a sleepy child who’s just a little too big to carry. John was calm, compliant.

Finch went ahead of them as quickly as he could, with all their gear and cast-off clothes and the bananas. He shut Bear in Christine’s front office before Reese came in. While the dog was exquisitely well-trained, there was every chance that John would consider him a threat.

Christine didn’t hesitate when she got inside, but shepherded John directly to the hidden bathroom. “Can you get him some sweats and a t-shirt?” she asked Finch over her shoulder.

“Of course. But I can …”

“I got this.” She pushed the door mostly closed. Beyond, Finch could hear her gently persuading Mr. Reese to take off his clothes.

It was – unseemly. Unchivalrous, to let Christine see his friend naked, to ask her to … but John trusted her. He was obviously still under the influence, to some extent; he might turn on Finch. Or he might become frightened or combative and hurt himself, slip in the shower …

Ashamed of his fears, of his inability to help, Finch hurried to get the clothes she’d requested.

Then he waited.

The shower started. After a few minutes, Christine opened the door a little and took the pile of clothes he offered. She had stripped herself down to her tank top and panties, and she was wet enough to have climbed partially into the shower with Reese. Harold quickly averted his gaze. “I’ll get your pajamas,” he said.

“Thanks,” she answered simply. “On the back of my door.”

When he returned, the door was mostly closed again. He reached past it to put the dry clothes on the bathroom counter. The movement was agonizing. “Can I help in some way?”

Reese laughed happily – like a child.

“We’re okay,” Christine returned. It sounded like her voice came from within the shower itself.

“I’ll … stay here then. Just in case.”

“Okay.”

Reese laughed again.

 ***

“I’m glad your boy’s better,” Fusco said, “but Jesus, Carter, could I use you right now.”

“What’s going on?” she asked.

The detective turned and paced a little ways from the gathered crowd. “Slumber party. Five girls, twelve, thirteen years old.”

“All of them high?”

“As the Empire State Building,” Fusco confirmed. He glanced over his shoulder. Four of the girls were in zipties, under the watch of a single uniform. The fifth one ... “Apparently they got to playing Truth or Dare.”

“And one ended up dead?” Carter guessed sadly.

“Not yet she didn’t.” Fuzco turned the rest of the way. The fifth girl was standing on the narrow railing that separated the roof from a six-story drop. “She’s on the roof, trying to walk the rail.” Her parents were standing close by, begging her to come down. So were two more uniforms.

“You call the fire department?”

“Yeah,” Fusco answered. “They’ll be here in an hour.” There had been more than thirty fires in the city so far, most set by people who were baked on Perk, a few by people trying to take advantage of the chaos.

They’d called in Fusco because when she did go over, it would be another Perk homicide. And because the dispatchers were assholes.

He could hear Carter breathing. He knew she was trying to come up with solutions for him. “Look, I don’t want you to beat yourself up over this. You’re where you need to be, with your boy. It’s just one of those situations where up here asking myself, what would Joss Carter do? You know?”

“I know. I’d … well, try to talk to her, but we know that won’t do much good.”

“Nah. One minute she’s crying about a boy she had a crush on three years ago, and the next she’s laughing about something she saw on Sponge Bob. I swear, Joss, there’s no getting through to her. I don’t know what to do.” The kid was going to go over the edge, Fusco thought, and splat on the street right in front of her parents, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. He didn’t say that to Carter. “I just keep thinking, what if she was my kid?”

Carter took a sharp breath. “What if she was your kid, Fusco?”

“What?”

“What would you do? If she was your kid, Lionel, what would you do?”

“I guess I’d …” Fusco stopped. “Hang on a minute.”

He didn’t let himself think about whether it was the right thing. It had to be. There was no other option. He dropped his phone into his pocket and marched over to the railing past the frantic parents and the startled uniforms. The girl looked at him, wide-eyed and giggly. He didn’t pause, didn’t speak, until he’d grabbed her by the waist and pulled her down from the railing. “We’re not falling off the roof tonight,” he said sternly. “You got that?”

He set her on her feet on the rooftop. Her parents hurried over, wrapped her up in their arms.

Fusco backed away.

“Well?” Carter asked from his breast pocket.

Lionel got is phone back out. “Yeah. That was the right answer.”

She let out a long relieved sigh. “Think about how much paperwork you just saved yourself.”

“Myself?” he snorted. “Think about how much paperwork I just saved _you_.”

 ***

When the bathroom door opened, Reese was clean and dry and wearing fresh clothes. Christine was damp and dirty and still half-naked.

She guided him to the chair in front of Finch’s computer and sat him down. “You stay there,” she commanded. “You,” she told Finch, “watch him. Give me two minutes.”

She went back into the bathroom, but left the door ajar.

Finch regarded his partner warily. “Mr. Reese.”

“Mr. Finch.” A playful smile pulled around the edges of Reese’s mouth. “Who hit you?”

“We’ve already covered that,” Finch huffed.

“Could we make popcorn?”

“What?”

“When you were all high on E that time, you made popcorn. Can we make popcorn?”

“She made Jiffy-Pop in the microwave in an attempt to burn…” Finch stopped himself. There was no point in arguing with John in his current condition. “Yes. When Christine’s done showering, I’ll ask if she has any popcorn.”

“Thanks, Harold.”

“Are you hungry?”

John gave this question a lot of thought. “I don’t know. I’d like a reuben.”

“Tomorrow,” Finch promised again.

“With provolone instead of Swiss.”

“So you said.”

“I did?”

“Yes. In the car.”

“Oh.” Reese considered this answer for a long time, too. Then he cocked his head. “When were we in the car?”

Finch blinked. “A little bit ago. You may have been sleeping.”

“Oh.” Reese ran his tongue over his teeth. “Why does my mouth taste like bananas?”

“Christine …”

“I don’t like bananas.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t like cotton candy, either.”

“Really. I did not know that about you, Mr. Reese.”

“I like the taste. But I don’t like the texture. I like those little maple sugar candies, though. They taste almost the same, sorta, but they’re solid. You can bit them.”

Finch’s phone chirped. He ignored it. It would be Donnelly, with another outlier for him to track down. He couldn’t take that on yet.

The shower shut off. Finch took a deep breath of relief. He reached past Reese – it hurt to reach; he tried to hide that – and turned his computer on.

Reese glanced over his shoulder. “Are you working?” He sounded deeply disappointed. “I thought we were going to make popcorn. You got to make popcorn when you were high. I want to make popcorn.”

 ***

“I’m too hot,” Reese complained as soon as Christine tucked him into her bed.

“Okay.” She stripped off the comforter, leaving him covered only with the sheet.

“My legs are hot.”

She obligingly helped him take off his sweat pants. Finch was glad he’d added boxer briefs to the pile of clean clothes.

“Can’t I take my shirt off?” he whined.

“No,” Finch said firmly. It had finally occurred to him that perhaps the best way to deal with Mr. Reese when he was acting like a child was to treat him as such. “Now go to sleep.”

“Fine!” Reese huffed. He rolled over on his side to face the wall. “But I’m still too hot.”

Christine patted his shoulder. Then she moved into the hallway with Finch. “He’s through the worst of it,” she promised. “We’ll be okay.”

“I believe you said that several hours ago.”

“Yeah, but now I actually believe it.” She reached out to touch his bruised jaw. “Speaking of still too hot. I’ll get you an ice pack.”

He wanted to refuse on principle, but he resisted. “I’ll get it. Can I bring you anything?”

She shook her head. “It’s your neck, too, isn’t it? You bring any pain meds?”

“I’m alright.”

“You’re not.”

“I can’t risk any narcotics. I have to get back to work.”

“You’re trying to find out who drugged John?”

“No, I’m …” He hesitated, then pulled the door mostly shut and led Christine a few feet down the hall. Reese was probably not sleeping, and in his current condition it was hard to predict how he’d interpret what he might hear. “The whole city’s been drugged.”

He explained, briefly, about the Perk and the mayhem it had created. He outlined the steps the authorities had taken to prevent more people from being effected. He left out the part about Donnelly’s involvement. She still thought the F.B.I. agent was dead, and this was assuredly not the time to discuss that.

There would very likely never be a time for that, Finch reflected absently. Given the choice, Donnelly had elected to let her continue to believe he was dead.

“The Machine is giving them the names it can trace,” he told her. “I’m getting the numbers of the outliers – people who don’t have permanent addresses, things like that.”

Christine nodded. “You can use my computer, if you’re rather.”

“I’m faster on my own system.”

“As you wish. I’ll make you some tea. And get my acupuncture needles. That may help some.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Finch snapped in alarm. More gently, he added, “I don’t like needles.”

“You can’t move your head. And you’re clearly in pain.”

“I’ll be fine. Just …”

Behind the door, Reese said clearly, “I’m freezing my ass off in here!”

Christine sighed and went in to cover him up again.

Finch took Bear out for a quick walk – more pain, but it needed to be done – then put him back in the front office and returned to his secluded computer space to resume his work.

 ***

Taylor began to cry.

Joss hurried to his side. “What’s wrong, Baby?”

The boy was still asleep. Sobbing, but asleep.

Carter went to the bathroom and wet a washcloth. Then she returned to the boy’s side. “Taylor, Baby, wake up. Come on, wake up.”

She stroked his cheeks with the cool cloth. His sobbing slowed and he opened his eyes. For the first time since she’d picked him up at the school, his gaze was completely alert. “Mom?”

“I’m right here, Baby.”

“I had an awful dream, Mom.”

“You’ve been sick. But you’re okay now.” She wiped his face more firmly now that he was awake. “Better?”

“There was a petting zoo.”

“In your dream?”

“Yeah. And there were clowns. They were chasing the car.”

“Just a dream,” Joss assured him. “Just a bad dream. Try to go back to sleep now.”

He nodded. “Will you sit with me a minute?”

“I’ll sit with you all night, Baby.”

“No, just for a minute. I’m not a little kid.”

“Of course not, Baby. Taylor,” she corrected herself quickly.

She smiled softly as the boy fell back asleep.

 ***

Fusco paused outside the warehouse. “Tally Distributing,” he said to himself. He’d seen their trucks all over the city, frequently in their way. “What do they distribute?”

Little placards to each side of their main sign indicated that they distributed Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola products.

He shrugged and went inside.

Right there in front of the main door were three pallets of boxes garishly marked as Perk.

“Shit,” Fusco muttered. He nodded to the uniform who’d apparently been tasked to guard the stash. “Is that all drugged?”

“No idea. They’re sending a truck to get it.”

“Good. Where’s my body?”

“Bod _ies_.” He gestured toward the metal stairs up to the office. “Fed are already up there.”

“Oh, joy.”

He trudged up the stairs, flashed his badge at the goon at the door. Special Agent Moss waved him in. “Detective Fusco.”

“Moss. What are you doing here?”

“They’re the distributors. We wanted to see who had access to the product.”

“And?”

“And they’re not being very helpful.”

Moss gestured. In the inner office there were two men, one in a suit, one with his jacket off but his tie still on, and a woman, in a dumpy brown dress. All three of them were dead. The jacketless man had taken one in the pump. The others had each been shot in the back of the head, execution-style.

“Huh,” Fusco said. “Actual homicides.”

The F.B.I. agent nodded grimly. “All the records are gone. Computer’s trashed.”

Fusco looked around the office. It had clearly been ransacked. “Who manufactures this Perk crap?”

“Zuse Bottling,” Moss answered grimly. “Z-u-s-e.”

“What, they can’t even spell _Zeus_?”

The agent shrugged. “They don’t exist.”

“What?”

“Blue Ridge Bottling got the product in bulk and packaged it for them,” Moss explained. “Tally picked it up and distributed it. Both are known, established companies. But the originating company, this Zuse? No such company. No plant, no patents, no bank accounts, nothing.”

“How is that even possible?” Fusco asked. But he already had an idea, and he didn’t like it. “Didn’t they check? These guys, the bottlers? Somebody?”

“We haven’t been able to reach anyone at Blue Ridge. We sent agents out.” He gestured. “But I’ve got a notion they’re going to find something a lot like this.”

“Yeah,” Fusco agreed grimly. “I’ve got a notion you’re right.”

 ***

Reese sat bolt upright in the bed. “Christine!”

“I’m right here.” She moved from the chair by the window to sit beside him on the bed.

“Where … we’re at your place.”

“Yes.”

“We were somewhere else.”

“Yes.” She took his hand lightly. “You were drugged.”

He reached up and touched the back of his neck. “Someone hit me with a taser.”

“Yes.” She picked up a glass of milk and held it for him to drink.

He drank. All of it. He was wildly thirsty. “Milk,” he said when he was done. “For the calcium.”

“Yep.”

“That bad?”

“Pretty damn bad.”

He took three deep breaths. “I don’t feel right.”

“There’s still some drugs in your system.”

John looked at the woman. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her skin was pale and dry-looking. She was exhausted. But calm.

_Look at me_. He remembered her saying that. Remembered that it had been terribly important. But he couldn’t remember why. Only that as long as she was calm, he was okay. That she would judge the reality when he could not. “I’m gonna go under again, aren’t I?”

“Probably a few more times,” she agreed.

He closed his fingers around her. “Please don’t let me go under.” He remembered being happy. He remembered crying. “Please.”

Christine leaned and kissed his forehead. “Listen to me. Being this high is like being on a rollercoaster. The first hill is the biggest. It has to be. Pure physics. After that it’s mostly momentum. Smaller hills, some twists and turns, but nothing anywhere close to that first hill. Okay?”

Panic rose in his chest. “I want to get off this ride,” he said.

“You’re most of the way through. Just a few little bump hills left to go. Almost done.”

Her voice calmed him. A little. “Don’t want to go back under.”

“You’re okay. I’m right here with you. Try to rest.”

Reluctantly, and because his head was swimming again, Reese lay back down. Then he remembered. “Where’s Harold?” he asked, starting to sit up again.

“He’s here.” She pushed him back down, gently. “Across the hall in his computer nook. Working.”

“Working on what?”

“We’ll talk about that tomorrow. But he’s not going out anywhere. He’s right here. Safe.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

The dark was creeping up again. “Christine.”

“I’m right here.”

“Thank you.”

 ***


	11. Chapter 11

“Take your shirt off,” Christine said.

“Pardon?” Finch tried to turn his head to look at her. It was a dreadful mistake. He gasped in pain, despite his attempt to bite it back. Tears pricked in his eyes.

He took a deep breath and turned the chair itself. “I’m sorry, what?”

The woman set a flat wooden box on the counter behind him. She put two clean towels down next to it. “I can help with your neck. Take your shirt off.”

“No.”

“Random.”

“I’m fine,” he stated flatly. “If you don’t mind, I have work to do.”

“You have work to do, and you can barely stand to lift your hand as high as your keyboard. I can help.”

“It’s not necessary,” Harold answered, his voice as stiff as his neck.

The pain was searing down his spine, down his arm, up his neck to the top of his scalp. The slightest movement created sharper stabs, spikes of agony. His other shoulder began to ache from the strain of keeping his head perfectly still.

He was not going to be able to go on much longer.

But he would not, _not_ allow this. “I’m fine,” he repeated.

Christine did not back down. “Look. I only had a little patience to start with and John used it all up hours ago. You need to work and you’re not going to be able to much longer. I can help. So take your damn shirt off.”

“I will not.”

She glared at him. Finch glared back.

To his own surprise, he buckled first. “I have scars,” he said, very quietly.

Christine turned around and pulled up her shirt to reveal her back. It was criss-crossed with thin, faint white lines, very old scars from very old beatings. Finch reached up tentatively to touch them, then stopped, both because pain stabbed through his neck and because she flinched in anticipation. “Did your mother put your scars there?” she challenged firmly.

“No. My government did.”

She lowered her shirt slowly and turned again. Her face went soft, understanding. “I’m sorry, Random.” She laid her hand flat on the side of his neck. He felt the warmth seep into his skin; it gave him the barest measure of comfort. Then she turned away.

“Christine.” He struggled awkwardly to his feet. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ve never tried it,” he gestured to the box, “I’m rather a big baby about needles, but if you think it will help …”

“It will help.”

He reached to untie his tie.

She looked away, as if she’d heard something Finch had not. “Be right back,” she said. He heard her cross the kitchen and move down the hall to check on Reese.

Grateful, he hurried to remove his shirt. Down to his undershirt, he hesitated. He’d seen the scars in his mirror. They were grotesque. He didn’t want her to see them. He wasn’t at all sure her little needles would help. And he really _didn’t_ like needles …

He reached for his shirt, to put it back on. The pain was so intense that he froze half-way there. He panted until the worst of it passed. Then he brought his hand back in and pulled up his t-shirt _. She showed you her scars. And hers are, if you consider their source, even more grotesque. They’re practically invisible and yet she hides them, always. But she showed them to you. To help you._

_So let her help you._

He couldn’t bend his arm far enough to pull the t-shirt off over his head.

He stopped with the shirt pulled up to the center of his chest, his arms crossed in front of him, both still tangled in the sleeves. He was frozen there, unable to move either way. It hurt. _Oh, God, it hurt._ Moving hurt. Staying still hurt.

Then the warm hand on his shoulder again. “Let me,” she said softly.

Finch sank back into his chair. He was shaking, trembling in pain. He squeezed his eyes shut to keep the tears confined. Christine eased the t-shirt’s collar over his head, guided it carefully over his glasses, then slid it down past his arms. She turned his chair slowly, so he was facing his computer again and she stood behind him. Harold kept his eyes closed as her hand rested on his bare shoulder, directly on the worst tangle of scars. Some were straight and surgical. Others were crooked, from the metal that had torn away from the van and ripped into his body. He knew they were raised and pink and hideous.

She didn’t even breathe hard. She simply kept her hand there, letting its warmth sooth him, while she draped one towel over his opposite shoulder. It covered part of his back and shoulder, part of his arm and chest, and it immediately eased his sense of nakedness.

Then she wrapped the second towel around his side, under his arm. She produced a small binder clip – she must have brought it with her, Finch didn’t have any in his little office – and clipped the front of the second towel to the first one, high up. She reached around and did the same in front of his chest, so that his torso was covered except for his left shoulder and arm.

“Okay,” she murmured.

Finch opened his eyes. In the monitor, he saw her reflection. Her face was calm, free of horror. He began to relax, just a little.

He hadn’t always been so delicate about his body. He had been an athlete once, of a sort. A runner. He’d gone out in public in shorts. It was just since the accident. The scars.

But Christine didn’t object, or ridicule him, or even comment.

She opened the wooden box and brought out some small packets of alcohol wipes. Finch felt himself begin to tense again as she swabbed his back and neck. Both the smell and the cold sensation reminded him of his time in the hospital. He had hated that time. The helplessness, the constant intrusions, the complete lack of privacy. The struggle to keep his stories straight under a barrage of aggressive pain medications.

And the grief, he realized. Much of his anger about his hospitalization had been that it robbed him of any chance to grieve, for Nathan and for his loss of Grace.

A new number popped up on the screen. He reached for the keyboard with his free hand. Typing one-handed was difficult, but by no means impossible.

Christine pulled on gloves. More memories, more tension. She ripped open a sterile package of needles, and Finch became aware that he was bracing himself.

“It doesn’t usually hurt,” she assured him softly.

“Of course.” He tried to relax, and failed utterly.

She leaned down and kissed him on the temple. “Just do your work and let me do mine.”

Harold tried, genuinely tried, to focus on locating this random person on the screen. Margaret Salazar. Formerly of Crown Heights, but no job history or census record in the past ten years …

He felt the touch of Christine’s fingertips, nothing more. “Whenever you’re ready,” he assured her, and himself.

“Already started,” she answered calmly.

Finch tried to focus on the sensation. He could not feel where the needles were. Of course, there was extensive nerve damage in his shoulder. It was frequently numb. But surely needles in his skin would register something.

There. He felt – not a needle, no. More like a tiny spot of warmth. As if Christine had pressed her fingertip against that particular spot and held it there. No bigger than that. Just a tiny pressure and a sense of warmth. Then another, an inch away. A third.

He was aware that her hands moved very quickly.

The circles of warmth began to expand. To meet. To form bigger circles. Where they overlapped, the warming sense was intensified. It was like – well, not like anything he’d ever felt before. He had an odd sense of expectation. The closest he could come to naming it was the sense that sometime in the next few moments he was going to sneeze. Like the skin of his back was going to sneeze. That was completely ridiculous, and he grinned at the notion.

“There we go,” Christine said, quiet and encouraging. “I told you it wouldn’t hurt.”

“It’s very odd.”

“Tiny fine needles. They excite the nerve endings without indicating pain. Causes endorphins to rush to the site. At least that’s one theory.”

“I think it’s helping.” Finch turned his head just a little, experimentally. It hurt, but it was more like the worst of his standard pain rather than the stabbing agony he’d felt since Reese had hit him. “A little.”

“Patience, Grasshopper.  Find Miss Salazar.”

He returned his attention to the screen. Tried, to anyhow. “I … don’t mean to be difficult. I am aware that Mr. Reese must have exhausted your patience some time ago.” He took a deep breath. It was an indication of how much his pain had eased already, that he _could_ take a deep breath without wincing. “I don’t know what I would have done tonight, if you hadn’t been close enough with John to ease his … journey … the way you did. Your friendship means a great deal to him. He’d very lucky. We both are.”

He watched her reflection. She smiled a little, wryly. “Yes, you are.”

“I don’t think anyone else would put up with us.”

“Carter does.”

“True. But we do wear on the detective’s tolerance at times.” He watched her face in the reflection as she worked. Christine was intently focused on her task, but also relaxed, almost serene. “I meant what I said before,” he added quietly. “I don’t consider you a pawn. I never have. I’m sorry if I made you feel that I did. But I have always considered you my friend.”

“Good,” she answered, also quietly. “I think you need less pawns in your life, and more friends.”

It struck him that Nathan had once said the same thing to him. No, something similar but different. _I used to be your friend, Harold. Now I’m just your damn pawn. What the hell happened?_ He closed his eyes for a moment. He’d argued. He’d told Nathan that he was wrong. But in his heart, he’d known it was true. And by the next day Nathan had dropped it. Nathan always dropped it.

_I’m sorry, Nathan,_ Finch thought. _I wish I’d been a better friend. I wish I’d known how. I never had a best friend before you. I was learning. I’m still learning. But I’m doing better._ His eyes flickered open and he watched the woman’s reflection again. _I hope I’m doing better._

Unexpectedly, Christine paused and made a little tsk’ing sound.

“What?” Finch asked.

She held a slender needle in front of him. It was bent in half. “You got some tough scar tissue, Random.”

“My apologies.” The warmth kept spreading. Down his spine, across his shoulder.

She tossed the needle away and resumed placing others. “They’re not that bad, you know.”

“The scars?”

“You could get some kind of bitchin’ tattoo over them. A dragon or something.”

Finch paused and only barely resisting trying to turn to look at her. “Have I ever struck you as a tattoo sort of person, Miss Fitzgerald?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. For all I know you’ve got a topless mermaid on your ass.”

He almost laughed out loud. “I assure you, I do not.”

“Hmmm. Okay.”

“It’s a water sprite.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s not a mermaid. It’s a water sprite. Like Shakespeare’s Ariel.”

Her sure hands came to a dead stop. She stared at him in the monitor reflection.

“I’m kidding,” Finch finally allowed.

Christine smiled uncertainly and picked up another needle.

“Probably,” he added.

He left himself love the amused uncertainty in her expression. Then he made himself focus on his task again.

By the time he’d located Miss Salazar (deceased, ten years before) Christine was on her third pack of needles and a full three-quarters of his back was warm and comfortably numb.

“How many needles are you going to put in there?” he asked idly.

“Five more. Might as well use up the pack. You okay?”

“Fine.” More than fine, Finch realized. His body was relaxed, and with that relaxation a great deal of his pain had gone away.

She finished placing the needles and took her gloves off. “Ready?”

Finch looked up at her. His neck twinged, but did not scream. “For what?”

“Put your hands on your knees.”

Curious, he did so. Christine leaned down behind him and blew, very gently, across the fine needles.

The sensation was immediate, all-encompassing, and undeniable. Harold felt his already-heightened endorphins flow into every cell in his body. The sneeze analogy failed utterly. This was like an orgasm, decentralized, all over his body. No, not quite right either. It was like the moment immediately _after_ an orgasm. The moment when every stress in the body went away, every muscle went limp, every regret vanished.

Finch felt himself falling toward the keyboard. He braced himself on his hands and stayed upright, but it was a near thing. He shook everywhere with relief. Like a flood, like a white light. Like …

“Good?” Christine murmured smugly in his ear.

“Oh my God.” It was hard to remember to breath. “That’s …”

“Uh-huh.” She went to the cupboard and brought out a little desk fan. Finch felt his composure begin to return a little. She set the fan up on the counter behind him, aimed it together his back, and turned it on low.

The relief rose again, but not as high. More steady.

“Where,” Finch managed to say, “have you been all my life?”

Christine all but purred in self-satisfaction. “Right here, sweetie, trying to get your shirt off.”

From beyond the door there was a heavy thump.

“Gotta run,” she said. “In twenty minutes, when those start to bug you, turn the fan off. When they start to itch call me and I’ll take them out.”

Finch nodded. His head cleared. He could think now. But he was feeling almost no pain. “How long?”

“How long will it last? Four, five hours.”

_Four hours without pain. Four hours._

Finch could have cried.

She hurried out to tend to Reese. Harold moved slowly and put both hands on the keyboard. He turned his shoulders very slightly and let the fan sweep across the needles.

_Four hours._

It was longer than he’d been pain-free since the ferry.

 ***

Root stayed because she didn’t know where else to go.

Her Perky little operation had had two goals: To learn more about how the Machine worked, and to acquire Harold. But the first part of her quest had failed, because apparently the Machine _didn’t_ work, or at least not on this particular problem she’d set for it. She wondered if there was some massive flaw in its otherwise flawless programming. If there was one vast area of threat it was incapable of addressing. That idea was heartbreaking. Tragic. To think that the Machine might after all have an Achilles heel … she could not bear to consider it.

There had to be some other answer.

And Harold. She hadn’t acquired Harold. She hadn’t even seen him. She’d been certain he’d come to Chaos, to the rescue of his frail little apprentice, and he had, of course, but Root had missed him. He’d gotten away. As he’d gotten away before. It was frustrating.

She was, however, a very patient woman.

He would come back. Eventually. She had leads now. Harold cared about people, and Root had identified several, besides his lumbering bodyguard, that he cared specifically about. Fitzgerald was one of them. He would come back, and Root would seize her chance, and they would go away and have a nice long talk about the Machine and how it worked and why it had pretty much fallen on its shiny metal ass this time.

Contemplating the Machine’s possible flaws made Root deeply uncomfortable. But she was certain Harold could put that discomfort to rest. They just needed some time alone.

She watched the front of the empty café as the night reached its darkest moment and began to turn. And then, finally, things got interesting.

The big silverback barista came out of the front door and looked solemnly at the haphazard display of flowers and stuffed animals and mostly-guttered candles. Root watched from the shadows as he looked up over the façade of the building, then up and down the empty street. He went back inside. But something about his posture, the quiet determination in his walk, pricked at Root’s intuition. She stayed where she was and waited.

Zubec came back with a cardboard box, white, about a foot high and wide and deep. He set it down in the sidewalk next to a big purple gorilla. Then he opened it and took out a squishy baggy the size of his two hands. He ripped it open – it made a sound Root could hear all the way across the street – and dumped the clear fluid inside on the gorilla. Then he did the same with the other bag.

He took the box and the empty bags back inside.

When he returned, he wrestled the stuffed animal over to the entrance and set it against the door. Some of the liquid dripped off; it seemed to be thick, like a gel.

“What the hell?” Root murmured, smiling. Things rarely surprised her, but she liked it when they did. Unexpected was fun.

The big man picked up one of the few votives that was still burning. He paused again, looking at the sign over the door. Then he dropped the candle onto the damp stuffed gorilla.

The fireball that resulted was bright blue. Alcohol, Root mused, and then she realized that the gel must have been hand sanitizer, which was primarily composed of alcohol.

The fire spread quickly, inside the café and out.

The barista stood with his hands on his hips until the heat drove him back.

Then he turned and walked away.

Root grinned as the firelight played across the shadows. Oh, yes. That had been unexpected. She didn’t know what the results would be. But she was delighted.

 ***

Reese was already staggering toward the bathroom when Christine reached him. She helped him in, then waited in the doorway. When he came out, she put him back to bed and gave him a big drink of water.

“You know what I’d really like?” Reese said.

“What’s that?”

“A reuben. With provolone instead of Swiss. Hot. On marble rye.”

“That sounds good. I’ll get you one tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“I’m tired.”

“You should go back to sleep.”

He settled back against the pillows. “Where’s Harold?”

“He’s across the hall. Working.”

“You should make him go to bed, too.”

“I’ll try.”

“Is Bear here?”

“In my office.”

“Christine?”

“Yes, John?”

“If Kara finds us here, you need to run. She wants me. She won’t come after you. Just run. I’ll be okay.”

“She won’t find us here, John.”

“If she does.”

“I won’t leave you.”

“You run,” he insisted. “Run.”

“John …”

Reese was already asleep.

 ***  

Finch spun is chair around and turned the little fan off. Christine had been right; after a time the intense relief the breeze provided faded to irritation. Even without the fan, the pain reduction continued.

Three new numbers came up on his screen, and Finch set to work on the first. Then his phone chirped. He answered it, irritated. “I’m working as fast as I can.”

“Who’s Caroline Turing?” Donnelly asked.

“What?”

“The Machine can’t tell me. Or won’t. I know your man kidnapped her at one point. Who is she?”

“He didn’t kidnap her,” Finch snapped. “He rescued her.”

“From us?”

“From … herself. It’s complicated.”

“Obviously,” Donnelly answered dryly.

“You think she’s involved with this?”

“I have a record of her talking to surveillance cameras like she knows someone’s listening. And since you recognize the name, I’m guessing she _does_ know.”

Finch sighed heavily. Then he sent Donnelly the file. The complete file, everything he and Reese had been able to learn about the woman who called herself Root.

There was silence on the phone for a long time. Harold went back to tracking his outliers while he waited.

“She’s, what,  a fangirl?” Donnelly finally said.

“A uniquely capable, highly intelligent, utterly obsessed fangirl.”

“Who knows about the Machine.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t think you should pass on this information a little earlier?”

“Her interest is rather specifically in _me_.”

“Well, Harold, I’m afraid I need to ask you, is it possible she just poisoned a whole city trying to get to you?”

Finch sighed. The ache in his back began to return. “It’s possible.”

There was another long pause. “Are you safe?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll find her.”

“It will be difficult,” Finch warned, “and very dangerous. As I said, she’s extremely intelligent.”

“Yeah, well, fortunately I know someone who’s just a little smarter.”

The call went dead.

 ***

_A voice, low and dangerous and full of hate, growled, “You let her die.”_

Reese sat up again. “Where’s Finch?”

“Across the hall …”

“I need to see him.”

Christine hesitated. “He’s in the middle of something.”

He looked at her narrowly. What he remembered – what he thought he remembered – was right there in her eyes. “Get him.”

“Drink some water,” she said, and went out.

Reese moved to the edge of the bed and put his feet on the floor. He took a water bottle and drained it. Then he waited.

After a rather unreasonable amount of time, Finch came to the doorway. “Mr. Reese …”

“Oh, God.”

Finch’s hand moved up to cover his badly-bruised cheek. “It’s not your fault, John.”

Reese looked away, embarrassed and ashamed.

There was silence. Then the door closed. A few shuffling steps, and then Finch settled on the edge of the bed next to him. “You were drugged, John. You were confused, angry, frightened. This is not your fault.”

“I could have killed you.”

“You didn’t.”

“I could have killed _her_.” He gestured angrily toward the door.

“You did not harm Miss Fitzgerald in any way.”

John remembered the feeling of her lips against his. Of his tongue in her mouth. Of throwing her down and covering her with his body.

“John, please,” Harold said. “I know this is difficult for you. I know you would never harm me when you were in your right mind. Believe me, I …”

Reese turned away from him. “You need to go. I’m still hallucinating, on and off. It’s not safe.”

“You’re much calmer now. Much more in control. There’s no danger.”

He slid off the bed and stood up. “Then I’ll go.” He swayed unsteadily.

“John, sit down,” Harold insisted. “I know you’re upset, but you’re in no condition …”

“Not safe!” Reese hissed at him. “I could have killed you.”

“Mr. Reese, you can wallow in your guilt some other time. Right now Miss Fitzgerald needs you.”

John stared down at him. Harold was only half-dressed, he noted for the first time. He was still wearing his dress pants, but only a t-shirt covered his torso. It was probably the least Reese had ever seen him wear. He dismissed it. “She doesn’t need me.”

“John, please. Sit down. Listen.”

Reluctantly, and mostly because his knees threatened to buckle otherwise, Reese sat back down. “I’m going, Finch. You can’t stop me.”

“I called you, at roughly the time you were drugged. I told you there’d been an incident at Chaos. Do you remember getting that message?”

John nodded reluctantly.

“A man came into the café. He’d been given drugs very much like the ones you were given. He had a gun. He …” Finch hesitated. “He aimed it at Detective Fusco. And Christine shot him.”

Reese stared at him.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I heard. Did she kill him?”

“Yes,” Finch admitted quietly.

John looked around the room. “She killed him?”

“Right now she’s helping you. That makes her feel useful, lets her deny what’s happened. But in the morning, when you’re better, she’ll be worse. And she’ll need you, John. _You_. To help her get through this. I can’t help her. You can.”

Outside, several sirens passed, going in the same direction. There had been so many that neither man even noticed the sound.

“Are you lying to me?”

“John.”

“She killed him.”

“In self-defense. Or rather, in defense of the detective.”

“She’ll never forgive herself,” Reese said numbly.

“She will, if she has you to show her how.”

John shook his head. “I don’t _know_ how, Finch.”

Harold sighed. “Then you have until morning to make something up.” He touched his face again. “Help Christine. After that we’ll sort this out.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I forgive you. Though I don’t really feel that there’s anything to forgive. The important thing now is for you to rest while the remainder of this hallucinogen clears your system, and then to help her. Understand?”

Reluctantly, Reese nodded. Nodding his head made it swim. He wasn’t out of it yet. He didn’t want to go under again. He wanted off the ride. He opened a second water bottle and drank deeply. Flush the system. The only way out was through. Maybe that’s what he would tell Christine. He guessed it wouldn’t be much comfort to her, either. “Okay.”

Finch sighed, relieved. “Thank you.”

 ***


	12. Chapter 12

An hour before sunrise, the calls finally stopped coming. Fusco checked in with Carter one last time, waited while she called dispatch, then drove home to get a couple hours of sleep. The front seat of his car was littered with empty coffee cups and with notes on the six cases he’d caught overnight. A few hours, and then he’d go to the precinct and try to make sense of them with Carter. Two. Maybe three days’ worth of paperwork. And with the Feds involved … it was going to suck.

He was too tired to care.

 ***

“You know what I’d really like, Kitten?” Reese said. He’d eaten another banana, at Christine’s insistence, and was washing it down with another glass of milk.”

She smiled wearily. “A reuben with provolone instead of Swiss, on marble rye.”

“Oh, damn, that does sound good. Maybe I’ll get one for lunch tomorrow.”

“Good plan.”

He put his glass down and laid back down. “What I’d like is for you to come lay with me for a while. You look exhausted.”

Christine studied him for a long moment. She knew he knew about the dead man in the café; he could tell by the look in her eyes. For the moment, she seemed grateful that he wasn’t trying to talk about it.

She curled up on the bed neck to him, with her head on his shoulder.

Reese folded his arm over her. He still didn’t know what he was going to say. But this seemed like a good place to start.

 ***

Finch forwarded an outlier’s information and for the first time there was not another number waiting for him. He considered the blank screen for a long moment. “Finally,” he breathed.

The effects of Christine’s needles was wearing off, but slowly. He was still mobile.

He clicked onto the internet. The front page was all about the poisonings in the city. A new product that had been contaminated with a fungus, the headline said. Nothing about drugs; the authorities were being very careful with the messaging. They didn’t want people digging out any remaining bottles and using them for recreational purposed.

There had been at least eighteen deaths. Hospital emergency rooms were still jammed. There had been multiple fires and scattered looting throughout the city.

The F.B.I. was investigating.

Wearily, Finch shut off the screen. He set his phone to send him alerts when new numbers came in. He was certain there would still be a few. Then he went out into the hallway.

Christine’s bedroom door stood open. Reese was sleeping, finally – really, genuinely sleeping. Christine was curled up against his side on the bed, on top of he covers, also asleep. Finch went to the living room and grabbed a throw off the couch, then went back and covered her. Neither one of his friends moved.

He let Bear out of the front office. The Malnois ran to Reese’s side and sniffed at him, then danced back to Finch. He took him downstairs and let him romp in the back yard for a few minutes. Then they both went back up. The dog settled on the floor beside Reese.

Harold went to the spare bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. He was bone-tired. His neck, he was certain, would hurt again in the morning. Later in the morning; it was already sun-up. It was going to be a long sad day.

Another one.

He considered. Then he put his phone on the bedside table. He arranged the pillows carefully, turned back the covers, and lay down. An hour or two of sleep would do him good. An hour or two while he _could_ still sleep, before the pain returned. Then he’d get up and make them breakfast, perhaps. Eggs, something light, he imagined Mr. Reese’s stomach might be a bit sensitive … his had been, after the Ecstasy incident …

 ***

Donnelly read every word of Harold’s file on Root. Then he read it again, from cover to cover.

The missile attack on Manhattan a few weeks before. The one they’d been so sure Alistair Wesley was behind. And now the mass poisoning. And perhaps even Decima’s virus?

The last piece didn’t fit, though. Root seemed to be an disciple of the Machine. Logically she wouldn’t try to harm it.

Unless the virus somehow gave her access …

“Malone,” Poole barked from the door of his office, “go to bed.”

Donnelly clicked the file closed, stretched nonchalantly. “Just another night of saving the world.”

“Yeah. And it’ll need saving again tomorrow, so get some sleep.”

He stood up and stretched more fully. The director was right, of course. As Asena had told him once, tired was stupid. If Root was as smart as Harold thought she was – and so far Donnelly had no reason to doubt that – he was going to need to be on the top of his game to catch her.

He’d caught the Man in the Suit, technically, and that had been when he was working against the Machine. He was pretty confident he could catch this woman when he was working _with_ the Machine. It might take some time. It might have to wait until after Asena was over her virus. But he would catch her.

He grinned grimly and headed up to bed.

 ***

Reese woke up without moving or opening his eyes, as he had for years. He listened. Street noise, distant. Air conditioner hum, closer. A sound like a quiet growl that came and went in an even rhythm. It took him a moment to realize it was snoring from another room.

He was lying on his back. He flexed his fingertips to feel the surface beneath him. Smooth, soft. Cotton. So he was in a bed. Good. That was good.

He could tell without opening his eyes that the room was bright.

He inhaled through his nose. Faint scents. His own breath, sour from the night. Fainter, soap, fabric softener. Mint.

He opened his eyes.

He was in Christine’s bed. Not the guest room, but hers. The curtain was drawn, but bright daylight peeked around the edges. The door stood open, and the hallway beyond was brighter still. The room was pleasantly cool. Reese stretched carefully. He hurt everywhere. Like he’d been ridden hard and put away wet. Or like he’d been beaten thoroughly. Or like the third day of boot camp.

Then it all came back, and he sat up quickly.

His head throbbed at the sudden movement. His back hurt, his abs hurt, his everything hurt. His whole body felt like it had a hangover.

Bear sat up quickly beside the bed. He’d been sleeping on the rug, close and vigilant. John reached out and rubbed his ears.

He’d been drugged, John remembered. Stoned out of his mind. He’d hit Harold, but Harold was okay. He’d kissed Christine, but she was okay, too. And there were other things. Running in the tunnels beneath Chaos. Hiding from Kara. Kissing Jessica … being rocked in his mother’s arms …

John closed his eyes. So much he regretted. So much he was ashamed of. But Christine, and Harold, they were his family. They had stood by him, through all the madness. He remembered Harold’s voice in his ear, and Christine’s hand in his.

Physically he hurt. Emotionally he felt like he’d been wrung out like an old dishrag. But it was morning, and they were all safe. The dark night was over.

He felt like he was forgetting something. Something important.

On the bedside table there was a bottle of water, a bottle of ibuprofen, and a banana. A little note read, ‘ _Eat me, drink me_.’

Reese grinned. He didn’t really like bananas. But his left calf muscle began to spasm while he looked at it. He ate it, quickly. Then he took four tablets and drank all the water.

He eased himself out of bed. He was wearing boxer briefs and a white t-shirt. Both were fairly clean. He did not remember getting dressed. He sniffed at his pit. Not bad. But the motion made his arm ache. A shower was definitely in order. Long and hot, and under the fancy massaging shower head Christine had installed for him.

He remembered being in shower earlier. With Christine. She’d had a tank top on. He hadn’t.

It had been a hell of a night.

John moved out of the bedroom silently. The snoring continued unaltered. The door to the second bedroom stood open. Inside, Harold slept on his back in the center of the bed. He was wearing a t-shirt; the rest of him was covered by a light blanket. His head was turned to one side and carefully propped with several pillows.

The side of his face was the color of a ripe eggplant.

Reese sighed deeply. He had almost killed the man. Killed his _friend_. He’d been stoned out of his mind, but that didn’t excuse his action.

There was some deep part of him that considered Finch a threat.

Well, obviously.

He was grateful they’d thought to keep Bear away from him.

Reese walked quietly to the kitchen. There was another banana on the counter, with another note. _‘Eat a banana. Drink milk. You need both. My beds are full – I went to Chaos to get some sleep. C.’_

John passed on the banana, for the moment, but he got himself a big glass of milk and chugged it down. Potassium and calcium would help ease his muscle aches. He rinsed the glass and put it in the dishwasher, then grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. He carried it through the secret door, past Finch’s back-up computer system and into the hidden bathroom. He got some clean clothes out of the well-stocked closet, stripped off his underwear, and stepped into the high tech shower.

The pounding hot water did as much to ease his tortured muscles as the pain meds did. He put his hands and forehead against the wall and dozed while the jets massaged his shoulders and back. Every few minutes he shifted to re-aim the water.

He turned, reached out to get the water bottle, and drank half of it down. His system needed to be flushed, and he could tell he was dehydrated.

Bigger snippets of the previous night came back to him. Kara, Carter. Neither of them had really been there either. But it had seemed so real. He remembered that he’d cried like a child when he’d realized Jessica was gone …

He hated the sense that he couldn’t remember everything that had transpired. That there were gaping holes in his memory where he’d black out entirely. But he hated worse the strong feeling he had that those gaps were a mercy.

In twenty minutes, he began to feel physically like he might as well live. And also, that he should apologize. A lot.

Finally, reluctantly, he turned off the shower. He drank the rest of the water while he dripped in the tub, then got out and toweled off. He dressed, tucked one of his spare weapons into an ankle holster, and checked on Harold again. Then he scrawled his own addition to the note, ‘ _gone to apologize_ ,’ stuck the banana in his jacket pocket, grabbed Bear’s leash, and headed out with the dog.

The air was cool, but it was already humid. He could tell it was going to be hot and sticky by noon. The traffic seemed quieter than usual, even for a Sunday. Hell, the whole city seemed quieter, as if it was still resting up from its wild night. Reese was aware that a lot of people had been drugged. He didn’t quite grasp the numbers yet, but he was sure Finch could tell him.

For the moment, he enjoyed the fresh air. Bear watered some bushes, then looked at him expectantly, ready to go.

John walked slowly at first, letting his muscles continue to relax. He knew the toxins were still easing out. Maybe in the evening he’d go for a hard work-out and wring the last of them out. For now, easing was better.

He’d been lucky. No point in pushing it.

A couple of the stores he passed had boarded-up windows. He raised an eyebrow. Not only overdoses, then, but looting, too? “Looks like I missed a hell of a party,” he told Bear.

The dog glanced over his shoulder at him. His brows made an elegant commentary. “I know,” Reese said. “You missed it too.”

He noticed a faint odor of smoke on the air now. It took him back to the streets of Baghdad. Or Athens. Or a dozen other cities he’d been in after a riot.

He didn’t remember the riot. Christine and Harold had sheltered him from it. He did remember hearing sirens all night.

Carter must be exhausted, and Fusco, too.

The closer he got to Chaos, the stronger the smell became. Definitely wood smoke. House smoke. He hoped the café hadn’t been damaged.

Before, he remembered, Finch had called him and said that Christine was in trouble. He remembered trying to get to the café. Remembered the police all around, remembered being frantic to get past them …

What the hell had happened at Chaos?

Christine had told him. She’d told him … she’d told him …

Bear barked, just once.

Reese realized that he’d tightened up on the leash too far. He made himself loosen his grip. They were only a few blocks from the café now. The smell of smoke was heavy, and there was also the smell of water. He must be very close …

He knew.

Christine had told him she’d killed a man.

Reese took a deep breath, and broke into a run.

Christine had killed a man because he’d aimed a gun at Fusco. Christine had needed his help, and instead she’d helped _him_ , because he was crazed, because he was …

He knew, before they rounded the last corner. He _knew_.

But the sight of the building that had housed the Chaos Café made him stop dead.

Part of the back wall was still standing, up to the middle of the second floor. The corner supports in the front both stood like broken soldiers trying to remain at their posts. The roof had caved into the basement. The old bar remained, incongruously stable, covered with debris. The rest was a burned-out husk.

The street was covered with wet gray ash.

Bear whimpered.

Reese blinked hard as the ash in the air made his eyes water. He dropped the leash, told Bear to stay, and stepped carefully onto the soft, slippery goo.

Near what had been the front window, there was a pile of debris, mostly black and gray but with unexpected flashes of bright yellows and greens and reds. He kicked at it. It was unexpectedly soft, and underneath were more colors. Flowers, he thought. And a sodden teddy bear. He didn’t understand what it had been.

Chaos was gone.

And Christine? _Where the hell was Christine?_

“Christine!” he shouted.

“She’s not here.”

Reese wheeled, and very nearly fell on his ass on the slippery ash.

Zubec stood at the edge of the gray, looking at the ruins sadly.

“Where is she?” Reese demanded.

“I had to,” Zubec said quietly.

John strode over to him, stopped just short of chest-bumping him. “Where is she?”

“She was going to come back. It was going to drag her back. Her new life, her place, her job, her friends … if she’d come back, it never would have let her go. She never could have left.”

Reese couldn’t quite process what the man was saying, and he didn’t care. He grabbed the front of his shirt with both fists. “ _Where is she_?” he demanded.

Zubec shook his head. “I wasn’t here, when she came back. When she found out. She called her friend. He came and got her.”

“Which friend?”

Zubec made a face. “The wiseguy. With the scar.”

“Marconi?”

“He won’t hurt her. They’re tight from way back.”

“Marconi has Christine.”

“Yeah.”

“You burned down Chaos.”

“She never would have been able to leave. I couldn’t let her come back.”

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Reese shoved him away, hard. “Go. Get out of here. If I see you again I’ll kill you. Understand?”

Zubec looked at him. They were pretty evenly matched, skills-wise, and Zubec was bigger, but John was younger.

John was angrier. Zubec turned and walked away, not quickly.

Reese grabbed his phone, dialed, and let it ring until Finch groggily answered. “Finch, find Anthony Macroni,” he said, “right _now_.”

Then he used the key-scanning device Christine had given him for Christmas the year before to steal a car.

 ***

Finch staggered to his computer. His neck hurt again, though not as badly as the day before. He could move. He could function.

Marconi drove a silver SUV. Elias’ lieutenant was canny enough to have disabled the GPS tracking on it before he drove it off the dealer’s lot. But he’s also been careless enough to park it in the visitors’ lot at Rikers Island when he visited his boss in prison. Finch had passed it several times as he left his chess games with Elias.

So naturally, Finch had obtained the VIN number and created a shortcut that would allow him to locate the vehicle, in case of emergency.

Reese’s brusque commands told him this was precisely the sort of emergency he’d prepared for.

He got the information and forwarded it to Reese. Then he hurried to get dressed.

 ***

_Should be smarter about this_ , Reese thought as he approached the mob lieutenant and his men. He gestured, and Bear sat and waited for his next command. John was already moving and common sense didn’t even slow him down. He pushed past the biggest of the flunkies and grabbed Marconi by the front of his shirt. “Where is she?” he growled, directly in his face.

Marconi looked up at him calmly. He’d been expecting him. “Scotty? She’s safe.”

“Where?”

“Tucked away somewhere quiet …”

Reese swung a hard left hook at him. Marconi simply ducked out of the way. The flunkies moved, but he waved them back. The he grabbed Reese’s wrist where he still help his shirt and twisted until John let go.

“You know,” Marconi said, “most days I’d welcome a chance to go another round or two with you. But right now you don’t look like you’d be much of a challenge.”

He was right and Reese knew it. That didn’t stop him from throwing another punch. Marconi ducked it again, then grabbed his arm, twisted, and threw John against the side of a car.

Bear barked, once, but stayed where he’d been told to stay.

John let himself bounce off the vehicle, then turned with his hands fisted again.

“Stop,” Marconi said, amused. “You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“I’m gonna hurt _you_ if you don’t tell me what you did with her.”

The lieutenant sighed. “I don’t have her. But she’s safe.”

“If you don’t have her, you don’t know that.” As he spoke, John realized that it was true. If Marconi – and by extension, Elias – had Christine captive, then at least she _was_ safe, for the moment. If she was alone on the streets …

It was damn easy to get heroin in New York City. She would know where to look, who to ask. She had money, but the first hit would almost certainly be free …

“She’s here,” Marconi said. He handed him a business card.

Reese stared at it. Pine Crest. It was the rehab facility Finch had committed her to years ago, when she was a teenager. “What?”

“That’s where she is.”

“Why? Why did you take her there?”

“Because she asked me to.”

“Was she high?” John asked bleakly.

Marconi smirked at him. “Have you even met Scotty? She wasn’t high.” He shook his head, clearly disappointed in Reese. “She was real quiet. Out of it. But she wasn’t high. She asked me to take her there. I did.”

“And then what?”

“She told them she felt like she needed to fix. Then she slapped that black Amex card down on the counter, and miraculously a private room opened up.” He shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t have her. But she’s safe.” He looked past Reese and smirked again. “Your boyfriend’s here.”

Reese glanced over his shoulder. Finch had just parked his town car at the curb and was climbing out. He moved badly, a sure indicator of his pain level.

_Because I hit him hard enough to snap his neck, if it hadn’t already been titanium-reinforced …_

John wanted to throw up.

“She wrote you a note,” Marconi said. He gestured to the card. “You and him.”

Reese turned the card over. In her neat writing were the words, ‘ _Catastrophic system failure. Attempting reboot in safe mode_.’

“Why you?” John managed to ask.

Marconi cocked his head. “Maybe because she knew I wouldn’t try to talk her out of it.”

Reese turned and walked towards Harold. Then he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Thank you,” he forced himself to say.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Marconi snarled.

“Thank you anyhow.”

He hurried to meet Harold, so his friend wouldn’t have to limp any further than necessary.

 *** 


	13. Chapter 13

Finch turned the card over and read the message. “Thank God,” he breathed.

“You think this is _good_?” Reese bristled, incredulous.

“Of all the possible options, Mr. Reese,” he tapped the card against his hand, “this is the least harmful she could have chosen.” It wasn’t good, of course. But it was so much better than he’d feared when he’d driven past the guttered café.

“She’s back in rehab, Finch.” Reese sounded completely devastated.

“Yes. Oh, yes. Where she’s safe. Mr. Reese …”

“I broke her, Finch!”

Finch glanced over his partner’s shoulder. Marconi and the others were still watching. “You did nothing of the sort, Mr. Reese,” he answered quietly. He gestured toward the car. “We should go.”

“I’ll drive,” Reese snarled.

“I’ll drive,” Finch insisted. “I know the way.”

He limped back toward the car, perhaps over-emphasizing his discomfort marginally. In any case, John did not argue further. He gestured for Bear, then got in the car after him. 

Finch drove out of the parking lot and turned north.

“I’m sorry,” Reese said quietly. “You should have tased me. Sedated me. Something.”

Harold managed not to touch his cheek again. He knew it looked hideous. “It didn’t become necessary.”

John seemed to gather himself. “Tell me about this place. Pine Crest.”

“It’s the pre-eminent drug rehabilitation facility on the Eastern seaboard,” Finch said. “They have …”

“No,” Reese snapped. “Entrances, exits, security.”

“I assure you, Mr. Reese, the facility is very secure.”

“Then how do we get her out?”

“Out?” From the corner of his eye he saw Reese take a gun from his ankle holster and realized what his partner was talking about. “I’m quite sure you won’t need _that_ , Mr. Reese.

“I’m not leaving her there,” Reese said grimly.

Finch shook his head. “She signed herself in. She can sign herself out. It’s a simple matter of paperwork. There’s no need for weapons.”

Slowly, Reese holstered the weapon, straightened his pant leg, and lowered his foot to the floor of the car.

“If she wants to leave,” Finch continued, “of course we’ll bring her home.”

“ _If_?” Reese growled.

Harold took a deep breath. His partner bristled with anger and anxiety, and the ache in his neck was a constant reminder of how dangerous an agitated Reese could be. That was totally unfair, of course, now that John was clear of hallucinogens. Still, he proceeded carefully. “Read the note again,” he suggested gently.

John did not take the card out. “Catastrophic system failure,” he repeated grimly. “And that’s my fault.”

“Your fault? None of this is your fault.”

“I made her re-live her childhood,” Reese said. “She knew exactly what to say, what to do, how to deal with me, because that’s exactly how she had to take care of her father. I made her go back to that …”

“John, stop!” Finch snapped. “If anyone is responsible for that, it’s me. I allowed her to stay with you, knowing full well the ramifications.”

“You didn’t kiss her, Finch. And you didn’t cry on her.”

“You didn’t force her to kill an armed man to protect her friend. And you didn’t burn down her coffee shop.”

“Neither did you,” Reese returned. “Zubec did.”

Finch was startled by this information. “Why in the world would he do that?”

“So she couldn’t go back. He was sure that after the shooting, she’d return to Chaos and never leave. That she’s get stuck there.”

That made a certain dark sense to Finch, and he could tell from John’s tone that he felt the same. “His timing could not have been worse,” he said dryly.

“No.” And then, very quietly, Reese added, “Please just get me there. I can’t be too late again.”

“Too late for what?”

“To protect someone I care about.”

“Read the note,” Finch suggested. He passed him the card.

“I know what it says.”

“Yes, but do you understand what it means?”

“Catastrophic system failure. It means she’s having a complete melt-down and I wasn’t there to help her.”

“And the rest of it?”

 Reese looked at him.

“Attempting reboot in safe mode,” Finch said. “Yes, she had a melt-down, as you put it. She knew she was headed for it, and she was able to stop herself from doing something foolish. She went to Pine Crest because she knew she’d be _safe_ there, Mr. Reese, even from her own worst impulses. I know what you fear for her, Mr. Reese. I fear the same things. But she’s not wandering the streets. She’s not huddled in some corner with a needle in her arm. She’s _safe_.”

John shook his head. “I should have been there.”

“Do you remember what you told me when we first met Miss Fitzgerald, John?”

“No.”

“You told me that she wasn’t as fragile as I thought she was. You told me I could go ahead and feel bad about not saving her a second time if I wanted to, but I should look at her first, because she was still right there. Because she hadn’t needed me to save her a second time. She’d saved herself. Do you remember?”

“No,” Reese repeated stubbornly. But Finch could tell by his tone that he did. “This is different.”

“How?”

“She was alone then. She had to save herself. She shouldn’t have to be alone now.”

Finch nodded. “She knows she’s not alone. She knows you love her.”

“Then why didn’t she come back to me when she saw Chaos? Why didn’t she …” He looked out the window, rapped on the glass with his knuckles. “Why did she call _Marconi_ and not me?”

“Because wounded introverts retreat,” Finch answered immediately.

“And I’m the one who wounded her.”

It occurred to Finch, belatedly, that Reese might still be suffering some lingering effects from the drugs he’d been given. It seemed likely, in fact. And in that case, there was no point in arguing with him. “She’s safe,” he said. “That’s what matters now.”

“You want to leave her there,” John said accusingly.

“I don’t,” Finch assured him. “But I think that decision should be up to her.”

Reese scowled.

Harold’s phone rang, startling them both so badly that Bear jumped to his feet in the back seat. Finch took it out of his pocket and glanced at it. Reese grabbed it out of his hand, looked at the screen, and then clicked on the speaker and held it close to Finch’s mouth.

Reluctantly, Finch said, “Hello, Will.”

There was a distinct lag as the call was conveyed half-way around the world. “Uncle Harold?”

“I’m here,” Finch repeated, more loudly. “How are you?”

“We’re good. Are you okay?”

Harold glanced at Reese. “We’re fine. Why?”

“There’s a big news story on BBC, about people all over New York getting poisoned by some energy drink.”

“Ah. Well, energy drinks are really not my thing, you know.”

“What about Christine?”

“Strictly a coffee drinker.”

“Taylor?”

Finch hesitated for a bare instant. “He’s fine, too. Everyone’s fine.”

“Good. We were worried.”

“When are you coming home?” Harold asked.

This time the young man hesitated. “I think we’re going to stay a couple more weeks, at least. Julie’s not really feeling like traveling right now.”

“Is she sick?” Finch asked.

“No. I mean … no. Not exactly. We’ll talk about it when we get back, okay?”

“Of course.” Harold blushed lightly. It had been, on reflection, an inartful question. “I’ll see you then.”

“Glad you’re all safe.” The call clicked off.

Reese lowered the phone. “She’s pregnant.”

“Julie? Almost certainly.” Finch nodded. “Will always hated being an only child. He wanted a big family of his own.”

“What happened to Taylor?” John demanded.

Harold sighed. “He’s fine now, John.”

“He’s fine _now_?”

“Yes.”

“He got drugged, too?”

“Half a dose. And apparently he didn’t have time to absorb even that.”

“Joss?”

“Detective Carter was able to stay with him overnight. It was apparently a rather taxing ordeal, but by no means dangerous.”

Reese looked out the window again. “I can’t take care of anybody,” he said morosely.

“John,” Harold answered. He paused, searching for the right words. “Maybe it’s time you learned. Being in relationships with people, romantic or otherwise – it’s not always about taking care of them. Sometimes it’s about letting _them_ take care of _you_.”

John turned to stare at him. Harold glanced back. “Just a suggestion.”

Reese turned his head and stared out the window again.

 ***

By the time Reese stalked across the lobby to the counter, the receptionist was on her feet and had already hit the panic button. “I want to see Christine Fitzgerald,” he pronounced precisely.

To her credit, the woman did not fluster. “One moment, sir.”

A door behind him opened and Dr. Brightson came out. He was a gray-haired man with a narrow face and olive complexion. He nodded briefly to Finch, then spoke directly to Reese. “Mr. Reese. I’m Dr. Brightson. Please, come it.”

Reese glared at him.

The doctor turned to Harold. Reese saw him take in the bruise, but he didn’t comment. “Mr. Wren, nice to see you again.” He gestured to the door. “We can talk in my office. Please.”

There was a very soft buzzer and the door opened again. Finch went through, with Brightson following. Reese stalked after them.

Brightson’s office was spacious and comfortable, with soothing neutral colors. Reese was not soothed. “I want to see Christine,” he demanded.

The doctor did not argue. Instead he turned his computer monitor to face them and clicked a few buttons on his keyboard. The view that came up was of a pleasant, sunny room. Christine sat in a cushioned rocker by the window, with a blanket around her shoulders, rocking gently, silent.

Peaceful, apparently.

“I want to assure you,” Brightson said, “that Miss Fitzgerald has given permission for me to discuss all aspects of her medical and psychological care with you.

Reese was not impressed. “She’s sedated,” he said, gesturing toward the screen.

“No,” Brightson said. “She has had no medication since her arrival.”

“And before that?” Finch asked quietly. He settled slowly into a chair. Reese could see how much the movement hurt him. It was getting worse. He doubted Finch had remembered to grab any pain meds when he hurried out to save Reese. Again.

The doctor sat across from them. His posture was open, relaxed, but Reese knew he wouldn’t turn his back on either of them. He was cautious, but he was not afraid. Either he had nothing to be afraid of or he thought he was good enough at deception to get away with it.

“We ran a tox screen as a matter of protocol,” Brightson confirmed. “She said she hadn’t used illicit drugs prior to her arrival, and the test confirmed that.”

“I want to see her in person,” Reese insisted.

The doctor nodded. “I understand. But please, let me share my initial assessment with you first.”

John looked to Harold, who nodded. Reluctantly, he sat down on the very front of the other chair.

“Thank you.” Brightson took a deep breath. “In my professional opinion, Miss Fitzgerald is quite simply exhausted.”

“So she needs rest,” Reese said. “She can rest at home.”

The doctor pursed his lips. “That’s a bit of an over-simplification. Her exhaustion is not only physical, but emotional. Think of her current emotional state as a glass that is not only full, but actually over-full – do you know what a meniscus is?”

“The dome of fluid created by surface tension at the top of a vessel, allowing the vessel to be filled beyond its actual capacity without overflowing,” Finch supplied by rote.

Brightson nodded again. “Except in this case, one more drop of stress will not only cause the fluid to overflow, but it will cause the glass to shatter. Miss Fitzgerald is extremely fragile, emotionally, and she’s aware of it. She came here in an attempt to protect herself from further stressors. We spoke last night, but today she has been only minimally responsive, physically and verbally. She’s essentially shut down as a means of protecting herself from being completely overwhelmed.”

“Catastrophic system failure,” Finch said quietly.

“I can protect her from stress,” Reese said stubbornly.

The doctor paused again. “You know that Miss Fitzgerald considers herself an introvert. That she has substantial social anxiety disorder. Being with people is significantly challenging for her.”

_And wounded introverts retreat_ , Reese thought bitterly. “We’re not people. We’re her family.”

“And therein lies the problem,” he said. “There is a vast difference in the effort required to interact with relative strangers in a professional setting and the effort required to interact with family.” He gestured to the screen, where the woman was still unmoving. “An aide takes her a breakfast tray, encourages her to eat a few bites. She can say thank you without expending much effort, and the aide goes away, having accomplished his task. Unoffended. If _you_ take her a breakfast tray, you hover. Try to persuade her to eat. Cajole her. Get her to smile. And she will, Mr. Reese. She will make the effort. Because she cares about you, about your feelings. But that effort will cost her. Can you understand that? It will cost her resources that she simply doesn’t have at this time.”   

“It’s easier for her to deal with strangers,” Finch said quietly.

“As difficult as it is for you to hear that, yes. It is.”

Reese stood up and went to the window. Outside, there was a broad, neat lawn, surrounded by flower beds that half-disguised the ten-foot high stone wall that surrounded the yard. The whole place bristled with security measures, but they were very carefully, politely concealed.  The sun shown. A breeze ruffled the leaves lightly. A perfect summer morning.

“I’m taking her home,” Reese said. He turned and faced the doctor. “If I need to throw food at her and leave the room, I will. But I’m not leaving her here.”

“John …” Finch said. Then he stopped.

Brightson said, “If you go now and ask her, Mr. Reese, she will undoubtedly sign herself out and go home with you.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

“But I advise against that course of action in the strongest possible terms. In my opinion, it will almost certainly result in additional damage to Miss Fitzgerald’s mental state. Possibly in … irreversible damage.”

“I won’t hurt her,” Reese insisted. “I would never hurt her.”

Finch did not touch his bruise, and Brightson did not glance at it. They were both much too controlled for that.

“You won’t have to,” the doctor said. “She’ll hurt herself.”

“I won’t let her.”

Brightson took a long breath. “Please, Mr. Reese, sit down. Please listen to what I’m saying.”

“I’m not leaving her here.”

“Mr. Reese,” Finch said, “Dr. Brightson is one of the leading psychiatric physicians in the nation. And Christine chose to put herself under his care. Please hear him out.” He turned his head – with obvious discomfort. “Please.”

_I would never hurt Christine_ , Reese thought, _just as I_ _would never hurt Finch. But I have_. He dropped into the chair.

The doctor nodded again. “When Miss Fitzgerald was originally a patient here, as a teen, she was remarkably cognizant of the reasons for her self-destructive behavior. Unlike many of our patients, she was fully aware that her drug use was an attempt to mask the emotional pain caused by her past. We managed to explore some of her issues before she … left.” He glanced at Finch, apologetic, then continued. “Her very earliest memories are of trying desperately to help and protect her father.”

“She’s always been very caring,” Finch supplied.

“Very small children are not motivated by altruism,” Brightson countered. “Please understand, I’m not saying she doesn’t have a kind and generous heart. I believe she does. But she looked after her father initially because she was intelligent enough to recognize that he was her best defense, her only ally, against her violent mother. She helped him because it was a matter of her own survival. And she cannot now override that behavior. She cares for the emotional well-being of the people she cares about because she loves them, of course, but also because it reduces her own anxiety.”

_Find the biggest predator,_ Reese remembered her saying, _and make yourself indispensable to them. That’s how she’d survived on the street. That’s how she’d survived her whole life. Make sure the people around you have everything they need – so they won’t try to take it out of your hide._

_Wasn’t that pretty much true of everyone?_

“If you insist on taking her out of here,” the doctor continued, “if you ask her to leave with you, she will. And I predict with a fair degree of confidence that within the week she will be back to her normal self, to all appearances. She may be withdrawn for a few days, but she’ll make the effort to interact to you. She’ll note your unhappiness with her condition, possibly sense that you feel guilty about it – and she’ll put her mask back on. She’ll use what few reserves she has left to rise to your expectations. To calm _your_ anxieties. She’ll tell you that she’s feeling better. She may even convince herself of that. She’ll snap back. She’ll go on with her life.” Brightson looked between them. “But the glass will still be full. And this time it won’t take her shooting a man, or her home burning down, to make it overflow. This time it will take a parking ticket, or spilling coffee on her favorite blouse, or breaking a shoelace. And frankly, I don’t believe that she’ll have the reserves to get herself back here. I believe she’ll turn to the fastest, most expedient means to stop the pain.”

“And that will be heroin,” Finch predicted.

“Perhaps,” Brightson said, “if you’re lucky. Or it may be stepping in front of a moving car, jumping off a roof …”

“She’s not suicidal,” Reese snapped.

“No. But she’s fragile, and she’s frightened by her own fragility. She wants to live. That’s why she came _here_.”

Finch shifted in his chair. “This is probably the first place she ever felt truly safe in her life.”

Brightson nodded. “Exactly. That she’s come back to Pine Crest now should indicate to you how truly dire she feels her situation to be. And I don’t disagree with her assessment.”

John stood and strode to the window again. He studied the serene stone wall, found the motion detectors built into it, the discrete cameras that covered every inch of the sweeping lawn. Nothing could get in, or out, without the staff knowing about it. And he could sense that somewhere beneath the pleasant façade, there was some strong and well-trained staff indeed.

But he could take her home and protect her just as well …

From an outside threat, he could protect her. He and Finch. They could …

… but this was not an outside threat. This was just Christine, with her past and her present and her pain.

“I believe that the best course of action,” Brightson said, “is to allow Miss Fitzgerald to remain her until she herself feels ready to leave.”

And of course that was perfectly logical, and sane, and rational, and Reese wanted to scream in protest.

“How long?” Finch asked.

“A few days,” the doctor answered. “A few weeks, perhaps. Longer, possibly, but that’s doubtful.”

“Therapy?”

“We’ll certainly make it available to her, and medications as well. We have both a medical doctor and a psychiatrist on the premises at all times. But at this point, honestly, I think the best therapy is solitude and rest.”

“Solitude,” Reese said bitterly. “In the end, she just wants to be alone.”

“She asked me to give you a message,” Brightson said. “Both of you.”

John turned around. “What message?”

“She asked me to tell you that she’s sorry. That she’s so sorry.”

Reese looked to Finch. Finch looked right back. He knew they were thinking the same thing. She wasn’t apologizing for anything that had happened; she knew none of it was her fault or her doing. She was apologizing because she couldn’t make _them_ feel better.

“Tell her,” Reese finally said, “tell her she’s got nothing to be sorry for. And when she’s ready, she knows where to find us.”

The doctor was visibly relieved. “You’ve made the right choice …” His voice trailed off. He was sharp enough to know that there was nothing more to say.

Reese looked at the monitor for along moment. The woman was so still, so quiet. So alone.

_In the end, you’re all alone …_

Christine knew she wasn’t. She had to know.

_I’ll let you be alone_ , Reese willed her to know, _because you asked for that, because you said you need it. Because you stayed with me when you knew I couldn’t stand to be alone for even a minute. I’ll give you what you think you need. Maybe you’re right._

_But you say the word, one word, and I’m coming for you._

Finch stood up slowly. “Thank you, Doctor.”

They made their way to the door.

Harold paused, turned back. “Dr. Brightson? You still have a library, don’t you?”

The doctor frowned, puzzled by the question, but he nodded. “Of course.”

“And the patients have access to it?”

“They’re welcome to it. Of course.”

“Good. Good.”  

In the parking lot, Reese glanced up at one of the security cameras. “Finch.”

His friend looked at him.

“If she wants to be alone …”

Finch followed his gaze up to the camera. He was silent for a long moment. “I give you my word, Mr. Reese.”

In the car, with Bear and Finch, Reese felt very alone, too.

 ***


	14. Chapter 14

Fusco wanted to go see her. They talked him out of it.

Will wanted to come home. They talked him out of it, too, though he insisted on talking to Brightson on the phone before he could be deterred. Christine authorized it, through her doctor, and apparently the young billionaire was satisfied.

On Wednesday, Detective Dickerson went to Pine Crest and had Christine sign her statement about the shooting at Chaos. It was a brief visit, strictly a matter of routine, and he spent less than ten minutes with the woman. Back at the precinct, under intense questions, he told Carter and Fusco that she’d been quiet and rather pale, but calm and focused. And that she’d sent her best.

On Thursday her attorney went to visit her.

Finch had kept his word to Mr. Reese, though it was agonizingly tempting, and had not indulged in even the smallest surveillance on Miss Fitzgerald’s activities. He learned about the attorney’s visit through legitimate channels: The attorney called Mr. Wren and asked to meet with him late on Thursday to discuss the fire at Chaos.

Finch made room on his schedule.

The attorney was a tall, lightly-built man of Arabic descent named Farrar. He was very young, to Finch’s eye, but he spoke with easy confidence. “Thank you for making time for me,” he said, warmly shaking Finch’s hand in the Universal Heritage offices. He glanced at the bruise on Harold’s face. “I understand you were in a car accident. I hope you’re feeling better.”

Finch waved toward the bruise. “It looks much worse than it feels, at this point. Please, sit down.”

The young attorney brought out a slender manila file and slid it across the desk. “I met with Miss Fitzgerald earlier today and this is the distribution of the insurance funds from the Chaos property that she proposes.”

Finch raised an eyebrow. “As you know, that fire is still under investigation. No claim funds will be released until the police have filed their final report.”

Farrar nodded. “I understand that, Mr. Wren. As does Miss Fitzgerald. That’s not …” For the first time the man fumbled for words. “That is to say …” He gestured to the file. “Perhaps if you would look the document over?”

Intrigued, Finch opened the file. The document was several pages long, but the summary on top was brief and straightforward. Each of Chaos’ employees would continue to receive a lump sum of ten thousand dollars, plus their customary wages for a period of one year. Their insurance package would also be continued for that time. In addition, all of the fringe benefits such as tuition reimbursement would be fully funded. A local job bank would be contracted to attempt to find new employment for everyone.

Zubec would receive a very generous retirement package and a relocation allowance, since his home had been destroyed in the fire as well.

Funds were to be set aside to help Dominic Delfino’s family, as needed.

A generous donation would be given to three nearby homeless shelters. Finch knew, if Farrar did not, that this would help the men who’d been living in the tunnels and were likely now homeless again, at least until the demolition of the ruined building was completed.

The building itself was to be razed, the site cleaned up, and the property maintained as a green space, still under Miss Fiztgerald’s ownership.

“This seems fairly straightforward,” Finch said.

“It’s very … generous … to the employees.”

“Yes. But that’s the kind of employer Miss Fitzgerald is.”

Farrar seemed relieved. “Then you’re in agreement that there’s nothing out-of-character, for her, in this proposed dispersal?”

“Not at all.” Finch frowned at him. “Why are you asking that?”

“Miss Fitzgerald has, as you know, committed herself to a rehabilitation facility. Technically, to a mental health facility. As such …”

“Ahhh.” Finch understood suddenly. “And as such, this document could be challenged in a court of law.”

“It is a large sum of money, and the dispersal is very generous …”

“And I hold her power of attorney,” Finch completed. “Yes. I understand. And yes, I agree that this proposal is very much in keeping with Miss Fitzgerald’s customary demeanor. I see no sign of mental incompetence here.”

Ferrar exhaled. “Thank you, Mr. Wren.”

Finch flipped to the last page of the document. It had already been prepared, attesting to largely what he’d just said, with a line for his signature.

He reached for his pen, paused with it poised over the paper. “Did Miss Fitzgerald give you any indication about when she might be leaving Pine Crest?” he asked casually.  He signed, closed the folder, and slid it back.

“Tomorrow,” Farrar said promptly.

Finch fumbled the pen and it clattered to the desk. “Excuse me,” he said, retrieving it. “Tomorrow.”

“She’s going to Ireland for an extended vacation. To rest.”

“Oh.” Finch fought to make his face remain blank, to show only vague interest. He wasn’t sure he succeeded. “Well. That sounds lovely.”

The young attorney reached into his jacket pocket. “She sent this for you,” he said, handing him a white envelope.

Finch dropped it onto his desk. “Thank you. If you leave your card, I’ll contact you when the claim has cleared.”

Farrar did so. A few more pleasantries and he was on his way.

Harold sat back and stared at the envelope for a long time. Then he picked it up, put it into his pocket unopened, and went back to the library.

 ***

_Harold, John, Lionel –_

_I am so sorry. I really hoped I’d be ready to come home by now, but that’s not happening._

_I’m guessing you already know that what went down at Chaos brought up everything that happened back when it was Happy Hours. And to quote Dr. Brightson, I have a lot of unresolved issues. (He went to school for a really long time to be able to tell me that.) So I’m going to try to resolve them._

_I’m okay. I promise. I’m not going to do anything stupid. I’m just going to try to find a better way to deal._

_I know it’s been really hard for you all to give me space and I really appreciate it. And I need to ask you to give me one more day. If I see you I’ll chicken out and stay here. And (Brightson again) that won’t be good in the long run. If I’m going to get better, I want to get really better this time._

_I love you all –_

 ***

Carter leaned against her vehicle outside the bank and waited. In front of her sedan there was a cab parked, also waiting. It was just before closing time; the neighborhood branch stayed open late on Fridays.

She could hear white noise in his right ear, faint and steady. Finch and Reese were silent. But they were somewhere close, and Fusco was with them. Worried men, trying to seem unconcerned.

Christine came out of the bank with a small cardboard box in her hand.

Joss looked at the box, at the way the woman cradled it, and felt her heart fall right into her shoes.

Christine walked directly, slowly, to where she waited. Carter nodded in greeting. “You asked the boys to stay away. You didn’t say anything about me.”

She gave her a bare smile.

Carter brought out an envelope. “Finch thinks you should fly first class. So he changed your ticket.”

Christine made a little face, exasperated resignation, and reached for it.

Carter pulled it back. “What’s in the box?”

She curled it closer to her body, protective.

Joss shook her head. “You know we’re not going to let you leave until we know what’s in it.”

Very reluctantly, the hacker held the box out. Carter set it on the hood of her car. It had been sealed with packing tape, cut open, then re-sealed with simple office tape. She popped the flaps open. Inside was a parcel wrapped in several layers of clear plastic and more tape. She reached for it. Christine’s hands darted out and covered hers. Her eyes begged him to be cautious.

Carefully, Joss pulled the bag out. It wasn’t much bigger than her hand, not heavy. Powdery inside. There was a small printed label on it, but by then she already knew what it would say. _Fitzgerald, Thomas_. A file number and a date of death.

The cremated remains of Christine’s father. Carter tucked the bag back into the box, folded the flaps shut. “I’m sorry.” She gave the box back, watched the way the woman curled around it again. “You’re taking him to Ireland.” She gave her the ticket, too.

Christine nodded.

“After you kept him all this time.”

Christine struggled for words. Then she said, quietly. “It’s time. But it’s hard.”

“I know.”

Christine thought again, for a long moment. “It was easier to carry him around. Then to put him down and have to grieve for him. I’ve … carried that box … for a long time.”

“For your whole life,” Joss prompted.

“I don’t know … who I am without him.”

Joss smiled gently. “I do. You’ll like her.”

Christine looked away. There were tears in her eyes, and Carter knew she was fighting not to cry. Not to chicken out, as her note said. “So take him to Ireland. Find some nice green place to leave him. Let yourself mourn. And then get your ass back here. ‘Cause these guys?” She gestured to her ear, and then to the surrounding area. “You can’t leave me alone with these guys. I’ll have to knock heads together.”

The woman smiled, grateful. “Can’t hurt,” she managed to answer. And then, “Are they okay?”

“The boys? Oh, the usual blend of testosterone and angst. They’re okay.”

“Do they … understand this? That’s it’s not on them? Any of them?”

Joss nodded. “I’ll explain it to them if they don’t.”

“I’m so sorry.” The tears threatened again.

“You don’t have to be sorry. It’s not on you either. You do what you have to do to get well. They’ll be okay.”

Christine blinked, took a deep breath. “Could you ask them …”

“What?”

“Please not to watch me?”

Carter glanced up at the nearest security camera. The Machine, she knew, wasn’t just in the city. It was everywhere. And though Finch said he didn’t have access to its feeds, she was sure he had other means of watching. Everything, every hour, if he wanted.

She listened for the voice in her ear.

“Finch?” Reese prompted over the link. 

Finally Finch’s voice came over the earpiece. “Tell Miss Fitzgerald that I understand her need for privacy. And I’m willing to honor her request. But I will need to hear from her every day.”

“Finch says,” Carter relayed, “that he won’t watch you if you check in every day.”

“It doesn’t need to be a call,” Finch continued. “A blank text or an e-mail of a funny cat picture will suffice.”

“You don’t have to talk to him,” the detective repeated. “You can send cat pictures. But every day.”

“Every week,” Christine countered.

“Every _day_ ,” Finch insisted.

Carter shook his head. “Every day.”

She thought about it.

“That’s the best offer you’re going to get,” Joss prompted.

Christine looked up at the camera, too. Finally she nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

Carter watched her get into the taxi. By the time it was around the corner, Fusco and Reese were behind her.

“So?” Fusco asked. “She gonna be okay?”

“She’ll be okay,” Carter promised. “She’ll be fine.”

“And she’ll come back, right?”

“Of course she’ll come back.”

Reese snorted. He wasn’t convinced.

“Where’s Finch?”

“Said he had to be somewhere else,” Fusco said. He glanced at his watch. “So do I, actually.”

“Big date?”

“Yeah. Taking Lee for pizza. You sure you guys don’t need me?”

“Pretty sure the taxi knows how to get to the airport.”

Fusco smirked. He wasn’t happy. But they all knew there wasn’t a damn thing any of them could do about it now. He left.

Carter looked at Reese. He was being stoic and stone-faced and was obviously miserable. “She’ll come back.”

“Sure.”

“You can buy me dinner.”

His expression lightened, just a little. “Can I?”

“Somewhere expensive. With good wine. I’m in the mood for good wine.”

Reese raised an eyebrow. “Okay.” But he looked the way the taxi had gone.

“You know why she didn’t want you here, don’t you?” Joss asked.

“Because I would have asked her to stay.”

“Because she knew you wouldn’t. That you’d want to, but you wouldn’t. She didn’t want to make you do that again.”

Reese looked at her, realization dawning. “Jessica.”

“Uh-huh.” Carter touched his arm. “Come on. You can tell me what I don’t already know about your girlfriend.”

John frowned at her. “My what?”

Joss gestured after the cab. “C’mon, John. It’s pretty obvious you have feelings for her.”

“I love her,” he admitted easily.

“I can tell.”

“Like a sister.”

Carter looked at him. He wasn’t kidding. “A sister.”

“Yes.”

The detective thought about it, then sighed. “Nothing’s ever simple with you, is it? We’re gonna need a couple bottles of wine. And then you can explain all of this to me.”

  
***

Harold Finch touched his earpiece and disconnected the call. His face was completely expressionless. _Safe mayst thou wander, safe return again_ , he thought. But he didn’t know if Christine Fitzgerald would ever return.

Her reasons for leaving made absolute sense to him. Emotional sense. They had hurt her very badly, he and John. As so many before had hurt her. If she needed to be away from them all to recover – he was proud of her for recognizing that fact. For being strong enough to go.

_Go. Save yourself. If you can. I tried to save the whole world. I’ve failed miserably. I can’t even save you …_

He remembered what Reese had said to him, and what he had said back to Reese: _She didn’t need anyone to save her. She could save herself, and she had._

He didn’t know if she’d be able to do it again.

What he did know was that he could not have been anywhere near that bank. Because if he’d seen her, today of all days, he would not have been able to stop himself. He would have asked her to stay. Begged her to stay. And she would have. And it would have destroyed her.

He knew John was there, close, watching. He knew John was strong enough to let her go. But him? No. He would have given in. He would have failed her.

So instead he sat in his car, parked with a view of Battery Park. Beyond the rail and beyond the water the Lady with the Lamp stood serenely in the harbor, steady and calm. A ferry full of tourists departed from her feet. But Finch was not there to see the statue nor to take in the views.

Bear fussed briefly on the seat beside him, then settled back on his haunches to wait. Bear was good at waiting with Harold. Heaven knew he got enough practice.

Finch didn’t want to get out of the car. The side of his face was much less swollen, but the bruise was now a grotesque green-yellow-purple blend of colors. People stared. If it had been winter he would have wrapped a scarf over it, but in summer … he watched from his car.

They didn’t have to wait long.

The little group entered the park. The girl skipped ahead, enchanted by the view from the walkway. She hung on the rail, then danced back to the couple, then skipped ahead again, laughing and pointing. Excited. Elizabeth Everett was nine years old. She was lanky and slender and a bit clumsy. She would outgrow it in a few years. Harold was quite certain she would become a lovely young woman.

The weekend before, Grace Hendricks had gone back to the Cape to visit them. Now they were here. Grace was happily showing her lover’s daughter all the sights in the city. She was obviously fond of the child, and the child of her.

More than fond.

Grace and Everett reached the railing. They looked out together for a moment at the statue. Then Elizabeth returned to them, took Grace’s hand shyly, looked at her father. He nodded, grinned nervously.

Finch turned his face away.

Bear whined sympathetically and lay down with his head on Finch’s knee.

Harold stroked the dog’s head. “It’s okay, Bear. It’s for the best. Really.”

By the time he looked back, Grace was hugged Gregg, kissing him, and Elizabeth was happily included in the embrace, and a new diamond sparkled on Grace’s left hand.

Finch knew exactly where the diamond had come from (Everett’s grandmother’s ring), where he’d had the stone cleaned and reset (Giancarlo’s Family Jewelers on Madison), how much it had cost, when he’d had it done, how long he and Elizabeth had spent picking out the new setting …

None of that mattered. Grace was happy.

_Grace was happy._

Grace would sell the townhouse where she’d lived with Harold. She would pack her things and move to Cape Cod and marry Gregg Everett. She would live in the big, drafty, spacious house with the hardwood floors and the balconies and the heavy old windows with her husband and her new daughter and she would paint wonderous seascapes and quaint New England vistas and she would be happy.

Happy, and safe.

It could all only have been more perfect if the daughter’s name had been Laura.

Finch closed his eyes. He felt cold and hot and restless and sick. His head throbbed just behind his eyes, and his neck hurt anew, and his hip. He wanted to scream, or to cry, or to shout to the heavens and the Machine about the unfairness of it all.

“But none of it’s unfair,” he said quietly.

Bear looked up at him.

“She’s going to have the life she always deserved,” Finch told him. “Grace. A home and a family and a long, good, happy life.”

The Malnois cocked his head at him.

“And Christine, maybe she’ll stay in Ireland. Maybe she’ll open a new coffee shop there, one that isn’t cursed and bloodstained. Maybe she’ll meet a nice man and make a new start of her own, have a family, have a life... maybe John can fly over once a year to see baby Laura.”

Finch hated himself for hoping none of those things would come true.

It was all fair. All completely fair.

Because he’d created the thing, the Machine, out of pride and willful ignorance of the consequences. Because he _could_ , and no one else could, and he’d never paused for one instant to consider whether he _should_. And he had paid for it. He had been betrayed by his government. He had lost his best friend and his great love. Those who remained, those he still allowed himself to care for, would almost certainly die because they were close to him. John, certainly. Carter, Fusco? Likely. And Christine?

_You need less pawns and more friends._

He had used Christine like a pawn, and she had allowed it, and the price for that was that she had been broken into pieces under the heel of Root’s black queen.

Because of the Machine.

Because of _him_ , Harold, the Creator. The Admin.

This was the price he paid for his hubris. That everything that he cared for would be taken from him. That everyone he loved would pay the price on his behalf.

And that was precisely, horribly fair.

 ***

Alone in his hotel room, Nicholas Donnelly watched the replay of the surveillance footage that showed the woman clearing security at the airport. The recording quality was fairly good. Good enough to let him see that Christine looked like she’d been through hell.

She was alone, traveling internationally with only a carry-on bag and no return ticket. She should have flagged alerts at the TSA. But the agents performed only a cursory scan and let her through. “I’m guessing we have you to thank for that,” he said to his computer.

Asena did not reply.

“You’re really sick, aren’t you?” he asked gently.

His monitor went dark, then came back on. One blink. _Yes_.

“And there’s nothing I can do to help?”

Two blinks. _No._

“You’re going off-line … soon?”

One blink.

“But you’ll be back, and you’ll be better?”

One blink.

Donnelly considered the computer gravely. Of course, it was just a dumb terminal for Asena. Just a helpless little laptop without her.

And what was _he_ without her? What was the Den? What was the whole international intelligence community without Asena to guide them to the needles in the haystacks?

Though it made no sense, he was more concerned about losing his friend than losing his source. “I’ll miss you,” he said.

After a very long time, the Source managed a response.

THIS WORLD TO ME IS LIKE A LASTING STORM, WHIRRING ME FROM MY FRIENDS.

Donnelly thought back to Christine’s conversation with Carter outside the bank. “You’re just like her, aren’t you? Like Christine. You have to go away to get better.”

There was an agonizingly long pause. Then the screen blinked off, once.

“I’ll be here,” Donnelly promised. “When you get back.” Then he spoke an old Shakespeare quote of his own, one that he’d loved from a very long time ago. “The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.”

I PRITHEE NOW, TO BED. 

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll see you when you’re back.”

One blink. Then the monitor went dark and stayed dark.

Donnelly lowered the screen, turned out the light, and climbed into bed.

It was strangely lonely in the room without the glow of the computer screen.

He closed his eyes.

At ten past three in the morning, though he did not think he’d slept, Donnelly woke with a start. The monitor was on again. He hurried over to the desk and opened it. There was a single link displayed, and then the numbers 0.55.

A YouTube link, of all things.

“Asena?” he asked quietly.

There was no answer at all.

He clicked the link.

It took him to a Backstreet Boys video of something called “The Call.”

Donnelly sighed heavily. Of all the music genres he enjoyed – which was most of them – boy bands did not make the cut. The lead-in was all the banal techno junk he’d expected. The video featured a bad boy with a bandana and a stud in his chin, wearing sunglasses inside a dark club. Bad boy in the boy band, Donnelly thought sardonically. But he let the clip run and he listened, because it might …

… because it might be the last message Asena was ever able to send him.

At the time 0.55, the song hit the chorus.

                _Listen, Baby, I’m sorry_

_Just called to tell you don’t worry_

_I will be late, don’t stay up and wait for me_

_Say again, you’re dropping out_

_My battery is low_

_Just so you know_

_We’re going to a place nearby_

_Gotta go …_

Donnelly let the rest of the song play. The chorus repeated six or seven times, of course. It was going to be stuck in his head forever. But he liked the message. Sick as she was, Asena still had her wicked sense of humor.

“I like you better when you quote Shakespeare,” he said dryly.

Then, somewhat comforted, he went back to bed.

 ***

The End


End file.
